IRVING'S "HAMLET."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12963, 16 November 1907, Page 7

IRVING'S "HAMLET."

(Dkscbibed ry ErxEjf Terry in .

"M.A.P.") When I read '"Hamlet" now, every, thing that Henry did in it seems to mc moro absolutely right, oven than I thought at the time. 1 would give much to be able to record it all in detail, but—it may be my fault—writing is not the medium in which this can be done. Sometimes I havo thought of giving readings of "Hamlet," for I can remember every tono of Henry's voice, every emphasis, every shade of meaning that ho saw in the lines., and made manifest to the discerning.

"Words! words! words!"' What is it to say, for instance, that the cardinal qualities of his Prince of Denmark wore strength, delicacy, distinction 1 There was never a touch of commonness. Whatever he- did or said, blood and breeding pervaded him.

His "make-up" was very pale, and this made his fee© beautiful when one wae close to him, but at a distance it gave him a haggard look. Some said he looked twice hie age.

Hβ kept three things going at the same time—tiho entic madness, the sanity, the sense of the theatre. The last was to all that ho imagined and thought what charity is said in the New Testament to be to ell the other virtues.

He was never orose or moody—only melancholy. His melancholy was as simple as it was profound. It was touching, too, rather than defiant. You never thought that he was wantonly sod and enjoying hie own misery. He neglected no coup de theatre to assist him, but who notices the servants when the host is present? For instance, his first entrance as Hamlet was, what we cell in theatrical parlance, very much "worked up." Hβ wae always a tremendous believer in processions, and rightly. It ie through such means that Royalty keeps ite hold on tho feeling of the public, and makes its mark as a Figure and a Symbol. Henry Irving understood this. Therefore, to musio so apt that it was not remarkable in iteelf, but a contribution to the genoral excited anticipation, the Prince- of Denmark came on to tho stage. I understood later on at the Lyceum, what days of patient work had gone to the making of that procession. At it* tail, when tho excitement was at fever heat, came the solitary figure of Hamlet, looking extraordinarily toil and thin. The lights were, turned down—another stage trick—to help the effect that the figure was spirit rather than man.

He was weary—hie cloak trailed on the ground. He did not wear the miniature of his father obtrusively round his neck f His attitude was one which I have seen in a common little illustration to the ''Reciter," compiled by Dr. Pinch (Henry Imng's old schoolmaster). Yet how right to have taken it, to havo been indifferent to its humble origin! Nothing could have been better when translated into life by Iryings geniue. Tho hair looked blue-black, like the plumage of a crow, the eyes burning— two fires veiled ac yet by melancholy. But the appearance of the man was not single, straight or obvious, a* it is when I describe it—any more than hie passions throughout the play were. 1 only remember one moment when his intensity concentrated itself in a exraight-forward, unmistakable emotion,~ without Bido-cuTrent or backwater. It was when he saia:

"The play's the thing With which to ontch the conscience of the King," and, jm the curtain cam* down, was seen to be writing madly on his tablets aswiiLst one of the pilianj. "Oh. God. that I were a writer.- I paraphrase Beatrice's "Oh. t>od. that r wort- a tnan:" with all ™J heart. Surely a writer could not string words

t. v * w«try Irring's Hamlet together sbout H eß '? h : ne th, f g i Xrkrf nntU the skin grew and he onta he b^ me tight ovf li&STVet still beautiful. WBo'e there? f£nc»co: Nay, answer mc; stand. j 11T ,f o id yourself. an !»• th. King. Francisco: BernardoP Bernardo: He. Francisco: \ou come most carefully upon your hour. f?erna rdo: lis now struck twelve; ce t thee to bed, Francisco. Francisro: For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold And all that he tried to make others do with these lines, he himself did with every line- of his own part. Every word lived.

Some said: "Oh, Trying only makes Hamlet a love poem!' . They said that, I suppo.«i», because in the Nunnery scene with Ophelia he was the lover above the prince and tho noet. With what passionate longing his hands hovered over Ophelia at her words:

'Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind/

His advice to the, players was not advice. He dad not speak it as an actor. Nearly all Hamlets in that scene give away tho fact that thenar© actors and not dilettanti of Royal blood. Henry d«fined the way he would have the players speak as an order, an instruction of the merit ot which he was regally sure. There wns no patronising flavour in his acting here, not a touch of "I'll teach you how to do it." Ho was swift, swift, and simple—pausing for tho right word now and again, as in the phrase "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to Nature." His slight pause and eloquent gesture as the all-embracing word "Nature" came in answer to his call, were exactly repeated, unconsciously, years later by the Queen of Ronmania (Carmen Sylva). She was telling us the story of a play that sh« had written. Tho words rushed out swiftly, but occasionally she would wait 'for the one that expressed her meaning most comprehensively and exactly, and a» she got it, op went her hand in triumph over her head. Like yours in 'Hamlet,' " I told Henry at tho time.