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Since Edwin Booth was so generally considered the best American actor of his time (some say of all time), and since Hamlet was his best known and most frequently performed role, our interest in it is more than academic. Booth knew Hamlet as well as any man in his century. His particular illumination of the role—an intellectual, neurotic, romantic Hamlet—has become a part of our own understanding of the character and has been reflected in the recent interpretations of Burton, O'Toole, and Plummer.
Booth first played Hamlet in California, at the suggestion of his father, Junius Brutus Booth, and it quickly became his most celebrated role. When Edwin joined with John (Sleeper) Clarke and William Stuart in the management of the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, Hamlet was his first production. It had a phenomenal run of one-hundred nights, setting a record which was not eclipsed for some time.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1969
References
NOTES
1 Curtis, George William, “The Easy Chair,” Harpers (April, 1865), p. 675.Google Scholar
2 December 3, 1864.
3 Sherwood, Bensen and Silverman, T. J. (second hand), Stage Plans and Settings of Scenery for Plays Performed at Booth's Theatre 1873–1883, in manuscript, New York Public Library.Google Scholar
4 Charles W. Clarke, “A Description of Booth's 1870 Hamlet.”
5 See Shattuck, Charles, “Edwin Booth's Hamlet: A New Promptbook,” Harvard Library Bulletin XV: I (January, 1967), pp. 20–48.Google Scholar
6 The water colors are in the Museum of the City of New York. The promptbooks can be found in the Folger Library, the Players' Club, and the Harvard Theatre Collection.
7 New York World (January 6,1870).
8 Bunce, O. B., Booth's Theatre, Behind the Scenes (New York, 1870), p. 9.Google Scholar
9 Vagrant Memories (New York, 1915), p. 207.
10 Letter from Booth to “Harry” (J. Henry Magonigle), November 14, 1874. In Folger Library.
11 Arthur Matthison, Program for Hamlet, 1870. Crawford Collection, Sterling Library, Yale University.
12 The Albion, January 8, 1870. The reviewer, however, is not William Winter, who by this time was with the Tribune.
13 The World, January 6, 1870.
14 Folger Library.
15 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.
16 Clarke ms.
17 January 6, 1870.
18 Edward Tuckerman Mason, “Some of Edwin Booth's business in Hamlet observed and noted by Edward Tuckerman Mason from 1862 to 1891.” In manuscript, Players' Club.
19 Calhoun, Lucia Gilbert, “Edwin Booth,” Galaxy VII (January, 1869), p. 79.Google Scholar
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24 Clarke ms.
25 James Taylor's Marked Copy.
26 Clarke ms.
27 Edward Tuckerman Mason ms.
28 Calhoun, p. 80.
29 Clarke ms.
30 January 7, 1870.
31 Clarke ms. Clarke uses right and left meaning audience right and left.
32 Royle, Edwin Milton, “Edwin Booth as I Knew Him,” Harpers, CXXII (May 1916), 841–49.Google Scholar
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36 Edward Tuckerman Mason ms.
37 Clarke ms.
38 Booth's private Hamlet promptbook, with “rough ‘mems’ for future use,” marked on the cover. In the Players’ Club.
39 Ibid.
40 Shakespeare On Stage, p. 167
41 Mason ms.
42 Clarke ms. One promptbook has a reminder here to the stage manager to “wait for Mr. Booth to be discovered before changing.” (Marked for Lyceum production, January 15,1877. In the Players' Club Collection.)
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44 Clarke ms.
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46 Clarke ms.
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48 James Taylor's Marked Copy.
49 Bensen Sherwood, Stage Plans.
50 Clarke ms.
51 Clarke ms.
52 Shakespeare On Stage, p. 351.
53 Bunce, p. 690.
54 Curtis, p. 675.
55 Calhoun, p. 81.
56 Booth's private Hamlet promptbook. In the Players' Club.
57 Clarke ms.
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59 Winter, , Shakespeare On Stage, p. 347.Google Scholar
60 Calhoun, p. 82.
61 Ibid.
62 James Taylor's Marked Copy.
63 The Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York, 1893), pp. 172–3.
64 Mason ms.
65 The program claims that the scene was played in the Grand Banqueting Hall (Act II), but Clarke reports that “upon the stairs and the gallery were groups and rows of spectators,” which would have been impossible in the simpler Act II set.
66 Ruggles, Eleanor, Prince of Players (New York, 1953), p. 169.Google Scholar
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68 Edward Tuckerman Mason ms. Punctuation slightly altered.
69 Goodale, Katharine, Behind the Scenes With Edwin Booth (New York, 1931), pp. 180–81.Google Scholar
70 Ibid., p. 182.
71 Financial records are from ledgers in the Players' Club Library.
72 The Tribune, January 10, 1870.
73 Booth settled upon the Folio reading “inobled” on the justification of research provided him by a fellow actor named John Malone, who discovered that the word meant “ignobled” and was descended from innobilitatus. Booth took pride in thus re-emending Shakespeare. For the pictures, “I now place the full length portrait of the old King on the wall and take from the Queen's neck the ‘picture in little’ of the new one. Some wiseacres insist that both should be together on the wall in order to carry out the idea of the ‘milkweed ear blasting his wholesome brother.’ In that case the pictures should touch one another. Pictures are not so placed, except in crowded galleries…Criticism—Bosh!” said Booth. (James Taylor's Marked Copy.)
74 Goodale, p. 157.
75 New York, 1931.
76 Archer, William, Theatrical World of 1897 (London, 1898), p. 178.Google Scholar
77 April 23, 1870.
78 February 5, 1870.
79 Clarke ms.
80 By Charles Shattuck in “Edwin Booth's Hamlet,” op. cit., p. 22.
81 Frenz, Horst, “Edwin Booth in Polyglot Shakespearian Performances,” Germanic Review, VIII (December, 1943), 4.Google Scholar
82 Booth's private Hamlet promptbook, with “rough ‘mems’ for future use,” marked on the cover. In the Players' Club.
83 Hamlet, As Produced by Edwin Booth at the Winter Garden Theatre of New York, January 1867 (New York, 1867).
84 Unidentified clipping in the New York Public Library Booth scrapbook.