ASIN: B00PEVLA6S
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Pages: 152
William Poel (1852-1934) in 1913 writes that ‘Shakespeare’s dramatic artcannot today be properly understood or appreciated on the stage’. This was,Poel argues, due to three reasons: editorial scene division, pictorial effects,and faulty and artificial elocution. Although Poel was mainly levelling thesecharges against late Victorian actor-managers such as Henry Irving (1838-1903) and Herbert Beerbohm-Tree (1852-1917), his criticisms are ostensible inthe theatre from the start of the nineteenth-century and even before. This paper investigates the frequently conflictual modes of representation actor-managers employed when staging Hamlet. What's the difference between legitimate and burlesque representations of Hamlet? What is the 'point' system? What part did Dickens play in nineteenth-century theatre? These questions and many more will be answered.
