The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-11-20
Blu Clinton Stuart


Looking backward these fifty years one
n struck BY the number of his contempt
raries, ranging from the supremacy well en-
lowed few to the relatively mediocre, who
have RETAINED from the afectation Of that
singularity; indeed the line of Hamlets seems,
Ike Macbeth's visions, to stretch out to the
crack of doom past. present and future, from
the period when the romantic and saturnine
Melancholy Dane of Edwin Booth held the
stage at the old Winter Garden Theatre in
lower Broadway, challenged at Niblo's By the
fair, fat and forty prince of that subtle
Anglo French actor, Charles Fechter, to
these days when Walter Hampden, recall
ing Booth both in aspect and fiery decls-
nation, contends with E. 81. Sothern for the
mantle Of the inky cloak worn to perfection
BY the clasdc Forbes Robertson.
Who the Hamset was on that well-rs-
membered night In the late ffties when my
fond father took bis eldest boy, then In
kits, to prematurely make the acquaintance
Of shakespeare's tragedy 1 have no iGHa.
Ehanks to a vivid imagination having been
stenansd by the tales Of a superstitious
Crotch nurse, the frst appearance of the
faost On the rnmparts Of Elsinore and the
ound Of his sepulchral accents struck such
error to my infant soul that / was carried
hrieking from the theatre and, to quote Bret
6arts, the subsequent proceedings interested
ne no more.
But once IN the teens, a course Of reading
q Shakespeare IN a fascinating English
action illustrated with engraved pictures of
tae farortte London players of the earlier
eays Of the Victorian era in costume pre-
pared me 30 enjoy "the legitimate" Then,
too, there was ever before me on thu library
walls q reproduction Of the celebrated por-
TAFT Of John Philip Kemble musins over
poor Yorfck's SAUL, and that majestic and
prfnosly beau ideal ofmanly beauty remained
tn rhs minds eye 10 realise the exquisite
description Of Ophehs's worts:
Pie eosrsier's, ssidleSs, scAols~'s 80,
tongue, ssoor6
fAs eepectoscy os6~oses1fshs tsk sssss
tAs eeoss Of fosttoo aaut tie would of tsrv,
It's p6srped Of ou o6scxcev4.
Faos "oSle ord most soeersie~ ,seso~
L<ss seees balls to~osed ost' Of tune ed
nS .s.asoasd ss... s-ss4.ss,r. o, ol..e.
Bnsesd >ostA eossosy"
Gigantic, indeed. fkestask smt1by Shakes
Dsars for whoever trss to rsa1i.s al the
ssznands and possibilities, bufh intellectual
and physical, Of Hamlet. Ohm ono won
dsrs al the sudsdsJ. say v1ut5, Of those
asptrans who posasR pstthsr the msnta.
acuIDn nor he 6seancf1on Of person and
dtcden psrUpeurf6 looand Sbs from an
actor who saays that mEsea4y, compiler
character. ProporttuunssRy e1est the rec
egn4etop Of fhs shining fsVspkhpn snbftion
s Jusoosd b. Enoress, even.compsrstss.
Tho0 who, Mn &hsVnesent writer, during
the eari1 seventies, vitnsasd Edwin Booth .
Performance and the less ideal bot unques-
eoaabiy picturesque assumption Of Charles
Fechtes, were fortunate IN the opportunity
Of both snjoymsnt and comparison. In the
opinion not only Of our, great pubic but of
tde BEST critics, Booth was made for de
Melancholy Dane and Hamlet might have
been written for him centuries In advance By
the Bard of Avon. Fechter, on the other
hand, disclosed In Shakespeare trnsedy
what bis countrymen call the defects Of his
qualities. In spite OF all he brought to the
Dane the manner, II not the aspect, Of the
heroes Of Victor Hugo's romantic plays In
which he was successful long before Mounet
eully arose as the superb and generous Her
mani. Hamlet proved rather more like Ruy
Bias and even the farouche Hermann listen
Ing for the sound of the horn than Shakes
pears's transcsndent dreamer,
At The same time Il interested By those
subtleties Of reading apt to distinguish
foreign artists, notably Helena Modje.ka,
when they interpret Shakespeare's char
acters In English. Its defect was It remained
a. radically a Gallo conception a though
be were voicing his mother tongue.
Stress was laid upon the superficial fact
that he wore a blond wig and a light, lair
beard, thus suggesting the man Of the North
you look like a great big Saxon dog" e1-
claimed the impuldve Ellen Terry at the
first sight of Frank Tyars made UP for the
King in a revival Of Hamlet" at the Lon
don Lyceum, Well, Fechter looked like a big
Great Dane, but Dane Ia Franchise.
HAVING been the original Armand Duval
IL TO the Marguerite Gauthier Of Madame
Doche when the Dumas Dame aux Camel
las" known to our public as Camille,
was first acted In Paris, he was somewhat
mature even in the earliest seventies for
Shskespesre's Prince, but his distinction
enabled him to suggest the mould of form.
Later on he appeared in French at tn.
Lyceum Theatre, New York, atterward the
Fourteenth Street Theatre, acting Armand
Duval to the Marguerite Gauthier of the
fair star of the troupe, Madame Juliette
Clarence, an excellent, sympathetic actress
and, reverting to English, made popular
and artistic success as Obenreizer in NO
Thoroughfare, q creation enthusiastically
praised not only here but in London, where
Charles Dickens acclaimed him. =.
Edwin Booths Hamlet remained mistaken
on its pedestal, and when in due course he
appeared at the beautiful theatre that bore
his name his sensational success at the Win >
ter Garden continued and increased.
Booths Theatre was so perfectly con-