Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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On 16 October, 1884 the first mojor London production of
Hamlet since Irving 's opened at the Princess's Theatre, under
the management of v/ilson Barrett. The performance combined the
talents of r. rising actor-nann^or and of E.W.Godwin, and it
incorporated a number of interpretative innovations. It moved
quickly, avoiding the "funereal gloom" which, Clement Scott
observed in hie Daily Telegraph notice, too often associated
itself with the play (1? October 1884) 1 . Hamlet and, more
notably, Claudius and Gertrude were younger thrn they had
hitherto appeared; the play was set in tenth-century Denmark,
rather than in a vaguely Renaissance kingdom, and the text had
been newly arranged and edited to give a number of "new readings 1
which startled experienced playgoers and readers.
The theatrical car, er of E.W.Godwin has been described
in the preceding chapter: some account remains to be r^iven
of the standing of the inonogement which -as responsible for
the new production.
i. -ilson Barrett and the Princess's Theatre.
In 1880 Wilson Barrett merited an entry of one inch in Pascoe's
j)r; :aati( f Lijjt, where it WP.S noted thr.t before becoming manager
of the Court Theatre he had acquired "considerable refutation
in the provinces as rm rotor end mn.no ^er", being lessee of the
Gr-nd Theatre, Leeds and the Theatre Royr.l, Hull. After a
season at the Court Theatre, curing which Elena Foojeska made
her first appearance on the London stage (rs Constance in
Mortimer's HeTtcr.roc on 1 ! ;ay, l',oO, he tool: possession of
the Prince c's Theatre in June, 1881. Edwin Booth had in vlr.rch
completed a season which ivd begun in November with Hamlet, and
hr:d displayed :iim in a re-->cr";oire of "over twenty-five different
imerr.-onr-fcions". In the scrsons v/hich followed Br.rrctt establiched
his nrinpr^ricnt r-s no unworthy c.ucccnnor to that of the
vicitor, and by 1°92, when The Dramatic Peorara was published,
p
he merited two pages of biography.
Barrett's rr >ic; rise in -u"blic esteem w;.,s 'uo in ercrt
pert to his esnouopl of "r. orioun" melodrama, olicitinr: the