Reviews of Hamlet

I've begun wading through the book Interpreting Hamlet, mentioned in a previous post (2/8/15).  Several of the early essays are reviews of different actors performing the title role on stage.  While these may have been interesting when they were current, I found them to be not so much now.  If I were acting the part myself, then it might be a different story.  Would I want to read up on how other actors had conceived the part, or would I want to go in fresh and not be influenced or run the risk of copycatting?

William Winter's review of Sir Henry Irving does include some commentary that caught my attention.  Winter notes that Hamlet "should be deduced from the play as it stands in its mature form...he must yet be presented with a certain vagueness."  He treats briefly the question of Hamlet's madness and love.  Is each real or feigned?  "The important thing," as he notes, "is to grasp Hamlet's experience as a whole, to absorb it into our knowledge, to bring it home to our own hearts...."

In George Bernard Shaw's review of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, he notes the following about the importance of the actor.

"It is wonderful how easily everything comes right when you have the right man with the right mind for it--how the story tells itself, how the characters come to life, how even the failures in the cast cannot confuse you, though they may disappoint you."

I will conclude with a quotation from William Winter's essay, which speaks to the ability of Hamlet--and analysis of the play--to withstand the tests of time.

"When the human soul and its relations to the universe are entirely understood, Hamlet will be entirely understood--and not till then."