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Edwin Booth's "Hamlet": a New Promptbook

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Edwin Booth's Edwin Booth's "Hamlet": A new promptbook The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Shattuck, Charles H. 1967. Edwin Booth's "Hamlet": A new promptbook. Harvard Library Bulletin XV (1), January 1967: 20-48. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37363904 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ...... Edwi11Bootl1' s Hanilet: A New Pron1ptbook Cbar/esH. Sbattuck :l; ~-- n,,,..11\TBooTH played Iia1nlct for nearly forty years. He play-cd it cvery,vhere, not onl)7 in Nc,v York and Boston and San Francisco, in England and Ger1n~ny, but in Vincennes, In- ... diana~1\1ucon, Georgia; Bay City, 1\1ichigan;Decatur, Illinois. '''hen he toured the States, especially·in the 18 7o's and 188o"s, people came to the cities fro1nmiles around to see hin1. Such cro,vds gathered at the train stations to ,velcome him (son1cti1ncs,vith brass bands and street parades) that Booth, ,vho ,vas shy of adulation except ,vhen he ,vas safely behind footlights, ,vould send out one of his actors c]ad in the ,vell-kno,vn Booth cloak and broad-brjnuned hat to impersonate hin1, ,vhile he hid in the car or escaped to his hotel incognito. He p1aycd other roles th~n Han1ler,. of conrse (in his later _years about a dozen)~ and some of thc111~ the critics thought, rather better; but Ha1nlet ,vas the role ,virh ,vhich he ,vas most identified~ in ,vhich the people loved him best .. It bccan1c a national institution, a legend.. The An1erican ,vho had not seen hin1 in it 1 or Joe Jefferson's Rip Van ,~Tinkle~or lviark 'T\vain on the lcctl1tc p]atforn1, had not lived in his time. In one of his later touring con1panies ,vas a y·oung actress named Kitty 1\1olony·,u very indifferent actress but a char111ing enthusiast, ,vh9 kept a diar)r of the season and long after,vards ;:vrote a book about it~ Herc, in part~ is her account of the Booth-I-Ian1lct 1nanil, California .St)Tlc;or ,vhat it ,vas like to be "Behind the Scenes ,vith Ed,vin Booth,, one l\1arch night in 1887 in San Francisco 1 ,vhcn he opened Hn111letthere~ 1 The author is indebted to the University of lliinois Center for Ad\Tanced Study an ti to th c Am eric-an Philosophical Society (The Pc nrosc Fund) for gr~ n ts in sup- port of this and f u nh e~ stnd ics of Ed ,vi n Booth. :1. I<ath E!rine Goo da 1c ( I(ii:ty i\1olony) ,.Be bind t fJe Scenes rwit fJ E dv...1iu Bo at h {N c,v York 1 193I), pp. 178'-1Si.. 20 Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume XV, Number 1 (January 1967) Edwin Bootlis Han1let 2 I The audience 1nust have been e-xpectingthe Star to 1,·alk on, for the curtain \Vent up ,vithout a sound front the front. T'hc 19ng began his speech. ~fhcn the inky-cloaked .figure ,,,as recognizedi and they broke Joose. I ,vas in the first en tra n cc:i-pro1npt sid c -- ,v here the clock ,va!L I tj med th~ t S::1n F rn ncisco reception. It Ja.sted n1orc than five n1inutes ... l\1.r. Booth held his son1bre mood and posture as long as he couldf then bo,ved gravely~- not a trace of a .sn1ile upon his fa.cc~ But they -- out there -- kept it up i until he \V.Os f o.rced to step out of cha rnc ter ::ind,van ly smile 11pon them . The n ig11 t threatened to bcco1nc a dcrnonstration to Ed\vin Booth, 1vith I·Iarnler left out. 1~he actor cornpeHed qui~t hy slipping into ch:iracter, hut a Hatnlct duit 1natlc one f c e1as if Jove's Hgh tn ing bo Its had be en turned 1oosc and ,,.,ere striking all about one. She validates her story of the occasio11,vith statistics. She counted the caHs. There 1vere eight calls for the first act~ ten for the second! sixteen for the third. After the Closet scene, she says) she Jost reckon- ing~ But then, at the end: Jj ghts go up :-:i:t once. No one 111ovesout t 1lere. The o rel 1estra is p] aying its I-Ian1let dirge, and then 1 after complete qujet 1 reaction sets in. Ladies cljmb 11p on their sea ts, scrca1n out for Booth! Booth! Ir is rcfi ncd Bed] a 111, and then n1ore cr1Ils. I no longer pay attention to then1. l am too u~ed up . The San F'rancjscans ,vcrc al,vays ,vonderfully· cordial to Dooth in these later years, for he had been their discovery., or perhaps one had better say·, their fathers:tdiscovery.. In San Francisco., on April 25, r 8 5 3, ,vhen he had 11otyet turned t\venty, he played 1-Iamlet for the first tin1e, to an :audience of inasculine and dcmonstr~tive (though by no n1eans unsophisticated) f rontiersmcn. The 1ncn of the Gold Rush prided themselves on their connoisseurship in Htcraturc and the arts 1 and especially jn the art of acting~ To a n1~n they had been adn1irers of Booth's father., Junius Brutus Booth, ,vho only 8 fc,v n1onths be- fore had played his 1astpcrforn1ancc for thc1n and gone back east to die. No,v to a 1nan they ,vcrc ,vatching the )7 oung Booth to sec \vhcthcr (ju the theatrical ja.rgon of the day) Hthe n1antle of the father ,vould descend upon the son.-u Four nights earlier, as he stun1bled uncert,a.inlythrough the first three acts of l~icbnrd Ill, his course lu1d seemed doubtful, but ,vhcn in the final acts he broke out ,vith s0111e- thing like his father's bravura~the} 7 starnpcded hin1 ,vith applause.. The Haut/et night seen1sto have hcen triu1nphant fro1nthe beginning. t,,,,e venture to assert ,vithout fc3r of contr3dictjon, that never in the his- tory of drn1na did such a. spectac]e present itself/~ etc., etc. -- so leads off the revjev{ of Ferdinand E\vcr, an ardent young critic ,vho Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume XV, Number 1 (January 1967) 22 I-larvardLibrary Bulletin be can1e Booth"'s first prop! 1ct. Booth~s I-Ia n1lct) he d cclared, '' p11ts to the blush any attempt in the snn1c ch~racter ,ve ha.Yeseen in Cnlifotni2.,' It ,vas far superior, he dared assert, to the ~'icycoldness,' and ('unbend- ing iron" of Ja1ncs Stark's Han1lct, Stark being just then the reigning local favorite. In point of appearance -at least) it ,Yas superior ev·en to the Han1let of his la.te great father. The ~'chief point of hcanty'' ,vas his ''fle:,3bility.'' Ile achieved ''all the easy 111otion and the peaceful curves of 'a ,vavc of the sea., '• In n f c,v ,vords E~.vcr spelled out his ''beau idcar' of Han1let1 anticipating the Han1let of the idealizing gen~ration that ,v-asju.st con1ing into its o,vn; and he clain1ed.,probably s0111 e, vhat \v j shfu 11 y, th at Boath h2.d perfectly realized his ideal: 1\1 cla nc holy ,vithou t gloom1 con cetn pl ad ve yet , vith out misanthropy i phi lo- sophi cal yet enjoying pJa yfu l ness in social converse, a man by hin,self yet ,vi th ardent feelings of friendship, a thorough kno"'cr of htunan nature 1 Hatnlct stands che type of a11 that is firn11 dignified, ge ntlen1anl y and to be respected in a rnan. 2 This is no Han1lct for our f rctf ul time, of course. It had not been the I-Ia1nlct of Goethe~ though it descends fron1 Goethe's fiagllc poet- pri nee. It is too serene~ bloodless, se1 f-con fident, gentc el, rem otc from trollble, a model book for the education of a gentlemen~Eventually, in BoothJsinterfusion of digrtity-, Hintellectuaiity,n and n1anly but discreet passion, it became the An1crican I-la1nlct of the age, -and our grand- fathers accepted it ivithout question. Probably Booth did not understand at first \\.,hat E\ver ,vas talking about. In his private ]ife he took no pains to behave like Hall that is firm, dignified, gentlen1anly/' nor did he "devote him.self to study,"' as all his California revie,vers advised hin1 to do. A hot young bachelor~ he lived like c'the fcllo,vs.H I-Ic ga1nb]ed, rode hard1-drank too n1uch~ got involved ,vith ,vo111e11.I-Ic ban1storn1ed to Australja and back, a profitless advcntt1re. Nor did he· speci~lize in "genden1anly,, roles. Like any stock actor of strong- an1hition hut unsettled direction, he played ,vhat he l1adto play, building his sl,ills ~nd his favor ,vith the public as best he. could. In his ]ast California season ( J 85 5-56); ut S:icr~nncnto, he appeared in over forty roles (Han1let hut once), n1ost of thc1n junk that he ,vould never touch again}:sliis final benefit per- ror a fuil ~ccount of Fcrdin[lnd E,\·cr and hesrdatjonsl1ip ,vjth Roothi sec '~Edwin Rooth,s Fir~t Critic,1' Tbe~tre Sur -vey, \ 1U (~1ay 1966) 1 1, .a A full Ust of Booth is ro lcs for th is sc ason, corn piled h,r Ch~ r 1es n~rn burgh fro 111 Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University.
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