Although Wilson Barrett (1846-1904) played many Shakespeare parts as an actor-manager, he distinguished himself primarily as an actor in melodrama. His greatest success was The Sign of the Cross (1895) a play he wrote and starred in as "Marcus Superbus," a Roman patrician who falls in love with a Christian girl and goes to meet his death with her in the arena where the lions await them. The play was tremendously popular, and as The Oxford Companion to the Theatre tells us, the play "made a fortune for him."

His roles in Shakespeare regrettably were far less acclaimed, although he performed in many of the plays. His Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet appears to have been the only role that won him much critical approval.

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