“Rouvière played the part like an inspired epileptic, Rossi like a tenor, and Salvini like a philosopher. Mounet-Sully reproduced all the best features of previous Hamlets, and added some inspiration of his own. Now, for the first time, Hamlet stands revealed to us in his real simplicity, as the poet created him. As to Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, it is hard to conceive that any human creature can combine so much instinct and innate intelligence with so much exact knowledge. Mme. Sarah Bernhardt is something more than an accomplished actress or an artist who plays upon the strings of our emotions. She is the incarnation of all gifts and all acquirements. She is the union, hitherto unhoped-for, of all inspiration and all art.”
[Illustration: Mme. Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet.]
M. Lucien Muhlfeld, in the _Echo de Paris_, says--
“Mme. Sarah Bernhardt’s Hamlet is a too learned, too bookish youth, urged to action by an impending calamity. He finds the weight of existence too great for his frail shoulders. To hear Hamlet’s meditations on death through Mme. Sarah Bernhardt’s lips is to realize all the vanity of life. She is the greatest of all actresses in the great dramatic masterpiece.”
It is interesting to contrast Mme. Sarah Bernhardt’s own opinions on Hamlet with the views expressed in the foregoing criticisms. In conversation with the writer, she scouted the idea that the Prince of Denmark is a complex personality. “I think his character,” she said, “a perfectly simple one. He is brought face to face with a duty, and he determines to carry it out. All his philosophizing and temporary hesitation does not alter the basis of his character. His resolution swerves, but immediately returns to the channel he has marked out for it. I know this view is quite heterodox, but I maintain it.” With a touch of characteristic determination, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt added--“It is just as well to have a decided opinion of one’s own, and adhere to it.”
“Some critics have argued that Hamlet has a feminine side to his character, displayed in his alternate excitement and depression, his terrors and his touches of cruelty. Have you sought to develop this feature?”
“Not at all. That there may or may not be something of the woman about Hamlet, is a question which might give rise to a great deal of argument, but I think his character is essentially masculine, and I have endeavoured to represent it as such.”