Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree

(1853-1917) Born in 1853, Tree’s real name was Herbert Draper Beerbohm. He assumed his famous stage name in the 1870s. After a string of performances, he joined Frank Benson’s company in 1886, where he played Iago before going on to London and the Haymarket Theatre where he eventually became the manager. “He elevated the Haymarket’s status as a Shakespearian playhouse, and his productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor (1889), Hamlet (1892), and Henry IV, Part 1 (1896) earned himRead more

Hamlet (Character)

Hamlet is the main character in the tragedy, Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark. Some of the famous players in this role include Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, E.H. Sothern, Sir Henry Irving, Sir Martin Harvey, and Sarah Bernhardt. The Shakespeare Blog recounts this anecdote from actress Elizabeth Robins about one of Bernhardt’s performances: “Madame Bernhardt’s assumption of masculinity is so cleverly carried out that one loses sight of Hamlet in one’s admiration for the tour de force of the actress… She gives us…aRead more

Robert B. Mantell

(1854-1928) Mantell was born in Scotland and first appeared on stage in Belfast, Northern Ireland; for a time he used the stage name Robert Hudson, but he reassumed his name Mantell after he joined the company of Helena Modjeska in 1878 and came to the United States. His first professional appearance was at the Theatre Royal in Rockdale in 1876. His first role with Dame Modjeska was as Tybalt in Hamlet at the Leyland Opera House in Albany, New York. HeRead more

Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark

What is this quintessence of dust? (2.2) Events before the start of Hamlet set the stage for tragedy. When the king of Denmark, Prince Hamlet‘s father, suddenly dies, Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, marries his uncle Claudius, who becomes the new king. A spirit who claims to be the ghost of Hamlet’s father describes his murder at the hands of Claudius and demands that Hamlet avenge the killing. When the councilor Polonius learns from his daughter, Ophelia, that Hamlet has visited herRead more

Sir Henry Irving

(1838-1905) Sir Henry Irving was the stage name of John Henry Brodribb, who was born in 1838 and raised in a working-class family. He was one of the most famous British actor-managers and dominated the late Victorian Stage (along with Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree). He was born in Somerset but lived in London from the age of ten. It was seeing Samuel Phelps (also a mentor to Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson) playing Hamlet that inspired Irving to take to the stage,Read more

Charles Doran

(1877-1964) Like so many actors who played Shakespeare, Irish-born Doran made his stage debut with Frank Benson in Belfast’s Theatre Royale in 1899; he had a part in Julius Caesar. The next year, 1900, again with Benson’s company, he first appeared in London at the Lyceum as MacMorris in Henry V. He played with Benson, doing mainly Shakespeare, until he left in 1903 to perform with several different companies. In 1906, he made his first trip to the US withRead more

Matheson Lang

(1879-1948) Matheson Alexander Lang was eighteen when he first appeared on the stage in 1897. Before forming his own company, he acted with the companies of Sir Frank Benson, Lillie Langtry, and Dame Ellen Terry. In his early career he toured the United States and the West Indies; after his success in 1908 in Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet, he toured South Africa, Australia, and Asia, where his company played Shakespeare with great success. Notably, he produced and starred in Romeo & JulietRead more