Irving's own performance, it has been already so
elaborately criticised and described, from his business with the supposed
pictures in the closet scene down to his use of 'peacock' for 'paddock,'
that little remains to be said; nor, indeed, does a Lyceum audience
require the interposition of the dramatic critic in order to understand
or to appreciate the Hamlet of this great actor. I call him a great
actor because he brings to the interpretation of a work of art the two
qualities which we in this century so much desire, the qualities of
personality and of perfection. A few years ago it seemed to many, and
perhaps rightly, that the personality overshadowed the art. No such
criticism would be fair now. The somewhat harsh angularity of movement
and faulty pronunciation have been replaced by exquisite grace of gesture
and clear precision of word, where such precision is necessary. For
delightful as good elocution is, few things are so depressing as to hear
a passionate passage recited instead of being acted. The quality of a
fine performance is its life more than its learning, and every word in a
play has a musical as well as an intellectual value, and must be made
expressive of a certain emotion. So it does not seem to me that in all
parts of a play perfect pronunciation is necessarily dramatic. When the
words are 'wild and whirling,' the expression of them must be wild and
whirling also. Mr. Irving, I think, manages his voice with singular art;
it was impossible to discern a false note or wrong intonation in his
dialogue or his soliloquies, and his strong dramatic power, his realistic
power as an actor, is as effective as ever. A great critic at the
beginning of this century said that Hamlet is the most difficult part to
personate on the stage, that it is like the attempt to 'embody a shadow.'
I cannot say that I agree with this idea. Hamlet seems to me essentially
a good acting part, and in Mr. Irving's performance of it there is that
combination of poetic grace with absolute reality which is so eternally
delightful. Indeed, if the words easy and difficult have any meaning at
all in matters of art, I would be inclined to say that Ophelia is the
more difficult part. She has, I mean, less material by which to produce
her effects. She is the occasion of the tragedy, but she is neither its
heroine nor its chief victim. She is swept away by circumstances, and
gives the opportunity for situation, of which she is not herself the
climax, and which she does not herself command. And of all the parts
which Miss Terry has acted in her brilliant career, there is none in
which her infinite powers of pathos and her imaginative and creative
faculty are more shown than in her Ophelia. Miss Terry is one of those
rare artists who needs for her dramatic effect no elaborate dialogue, and
for whom the simplest words are sufficient. 'I love you not,' says
Hamlet, and all that Ophelia answers is, 'I was the more deceived.' These
are not very grand words to read, but as Miss Terry gave them in acting
they seemed to be the highest possible expression of Ophelia's character.