Irving's success"? The scenery was of the simplest--no money was
spent on it even when the play was revived at the Lyceum after Colonel
Bateman's death. Henry's dress probably cost him about L2!
My Ophelia dress was made of material which could not have cost more
than 2_s._ a yard, and not many yards were wanted, as I was at the time
thin to vanishing point! I have the dress still, and, looking at it the
other day, I wondered what leading lady now would consent to wear it.
At all its best points, Henry's Hamlet was susceptible of absurd
imitation. Think of this well, young actors, who are content to play for
safety, to avoid ridicule at all costs, to be "natural"--oh, word most
vilely abused! What sort of _naturalness_ is this of Hamlet's?
"O, villain, villain, smiling damned villain!"
Henry Irving's imitators could make people burst with laughter when they
took off his delivery of that line. And, indeed, the original, too, was
almost provocative of laughter--rightly so, for such emotional
indignation has its funny as well as its terrible aspect. The mad, and
all are mad who have, as Socrates put it, "a divine release from the
common ways of men," may speak ludicrously, even when they speak the
truth.
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