New-York tribune., 1922-11-17

4
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having neither the wish nor the
credentials to bestow decorations upon
the Harnlets, we may not say that Mr.
barrymore's first acting of the role
last night placed him among the great
OF his kind. No player, it is said. has
ever entirely failed as Hamlet. and
meme, as Mr.. Barrymore suggested in
ais curtain speech, has been known
completely 70 succeed. But it can be
recorded modestly thats it was the
opinion Of this humble observer and
that OF others less lcwly ameng those
present. that the characterization was
more nearly to the hearts desire than
any other within memory.
IN what manner, you will ask, does
Mr' barrymore's Hamlet differ from
the traditional performances? 1t differs
In many ways. Most distinctive amone
lts attributes seems to be the quality
cf Illusion, sense of reality not in
auced alone by minor devices of stage
business" The least thestrica, Of
the Hxmiets. SO far as we know. Mr..
barrymore yet sacrificed none Of the
color and music of the role to his
honest histrionics. From his horror
stricken, unfergettable look upon the
ghost in the beginning, to the dropped
jaw of death at the ending he was
hamlet, not an elocutionist reciting
Shakespeare. This would appear to be
good deal of an achievement, since
no one seems to have satisfactory
idea of what Hamlet really was.
we give you our word that this sweet
prince is distraught, though mys-
terlous, human being; not PROLONGED
and loquacious query. He talks to the
ridiculous Rosencrantz and Guilden-
stern as one man to others, and he
pronounces the notorious soliloquy in
a believable way. Even in the scene
pe1ore the players, where superstition
demands, that he sprawl little ludi-
crously upon the floor, he seems to be
in no artificial pose. No gabby Po-
lonius, we suspect, has ever been slain
more thoroughly than was the old
eaves-dropping chatterbox Hast night
when Mr.. Barrymore slew him behind
the arras. And there was conviction
In the fine scenes with the forlorn
Ophelia, and with the guilty Queen
Mother. The audience, which in it's
demeanor was more interested in
Barrymore than in Shakespeare, was
the most excited, at several points, that
we have ever seen in a theater
Mr.. Jones's sane. scenery includes
for several of the settings majestic
interior, whose lofty old Scandinavian
spaces help to welcome you to Elsinore.
The dress, too, is hospitable, being of
l'dignitied and eye-flling deep reds and
blues. Mr.. Hopkins, who directs
Shakespeare almost as skillfully as he
does Eugene O'NeiIl, assemblies the pic
lures in rather an effective fashion,
especially the mortuary details of the
terminus. The tableau there is so well
done that you forget that the play
should end with 'the rest is silence"
Still, YOU may feel that the grandeur.
of the scene fades with every subse-
quent moment.
The good cast includes Mr.. Frederic
Lewis, whose H0fatio is famed in GER
tain quarters as better than Shake
speare's, Miss Rosalind Fuller, whose
pretty lunacies as 0phelia are striking
and pathetic; Mr.. Tyrone Power, to
whose intelligent sonorities is added
the gift of acting, and Miss Blanche
Yurka, who as the queen mother, we
thought, was next to Mr.. Barrymore in
excellence.