New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-03-14
THE DRAMA.
vR roRBEs-RoBERTsoN as HAMLET.
Knickerbocker Theatre.

- r,o-bes-Robertson sgnalizes the final week OF
,,,e engagement at the Knickerhocker Theatre ny
-osenting Hamlet His performance OF the Dane
-. ,i-ht was observed with interest, and re-
- with favor by an audience considerable In
.,,-,bers and sympathetic in feeling. 1t is a pro-
sI,t exposition of an Intellectual IL not an abso-
1tev definite ideal. sincere in feeling. evenly sus-
...o5 IN execution and fraught with dignity and
,re II viii be six times repeated. and while It
soirs here the lovers of Shakespeare have an op-
.ortnnity of seeing great play pictorially set
- q the main. well acted. Mr.. Forbes Robert
80 a5opted Hamlet into his repertory in 1897, and
tss i,personation of ii has been accepted and ad-
,-es in many cities OF Great Britain and America
- Nev-York he acted it for the first time on March
,om and il was then carefully reviewed in this
,lsce No new word is suggested by its recur-
rence II II had been poetic. If II had revealed
ereat personality. If IL had exemplihed the dis
+-surbt piteous condition of finite man. over
beiu1ed in the hopeless effort to pierce the mys-
.,-v NJ his environment in the boundess and awful
universe of God. the testimony TO its intrinsic ex-
,suenee Of ideal would have been freely and ear
neslr given. Il did not do those things. II
vas Jninspfred and cold; only rising Qn Ham
lets coIloquy with Ophelia, after the soloquy on
Death to any height Of power. There is silly no.
f,n FOR some time current that no admirer OF Ed
,iu Booth as Hamlet ever did could ad-
rire any other actor IL that part. Nothing could
be more absurd. 1t is not admiration of Edwin
Booth that chills the observer of Mr.. Forbes-Ro
ertson. OF Mr.. f. II Sothern. or Mr.. Robert Man
tell OF Mr. Henry Miller etc. it is the lack. the
part Of those performers Of the Hamlet tempera-
rnent Two actors. in our time, have shown that
tenperament-Edwih Booth and Henry Irving
and both Of them conquered with it, because both
OF them not only embodied Hamlet but illumined
the body WITH the radiance Of the soul Mr..
Forbes Robertson as Hamlet, has fine moments;
but as n whole his modern, coloquial. expeditions
image Of Hamlet does little more than to show the
various values of the character vehicle of dra-
matte expression. OF Hamlet. a who has
passed beyond the love Of woman. man who some
times wavers in the borderland between reason and
Madness 4 ma. predsposed 10 suicide through
darby broo6ing the fearful mystery OF life and
death. his acting makes denotement. Hamlet
means misery; not the of black Grape and pur-
pie velvet; but the lethal misery from which there
is no refuge bot the grave. The actor who does
rot know This and cannot make this felt has not
fully comprehended the subject and cannot truly
act the part. Mr.. Forbes Robertson is a good
actor, accomplished, expert often exceedingly inter-
esting; scholar. thinker, a writer a painter a
man OF rare gifts and noble artistic spirit. No
BODY wishes underyalue him, IL the least II is
crediable and honorable 10 him that he should de-
vote his fine talents to Shakespeare But every
actor has his limitations. and, as the Oriental
proyerb wisely says:
Though it poorer be or richer,
You can only nil your pitcher.