One of the most notable instances of a great actor assuming a small part was on the occasion of Charles Kean’s first appearance as Hamlet in Baltimore, when at the Holiday Street Theatre, in 1831, the elder Booth, at that time at the very height of his fame and prosperity, for some reason now unknown, volunteered to play the Second Actor, the most insignificant character in the tragedy. John Duff was the Ghost; Mrs. Duff Queen Gertrude; John Sefton Osric; Thomas Flynn First Grave-digger; and William Warren, father of the William Warren for whom Boston mourns to-day, was Polonius. This was an exceedingly strong cast of the tragedy, and the Second Actor most certainly was never in better hands on any stage.
WILLIAM PELBY.
The strongest cast of Hamlet, in all its parts, ever presented in America, was that at the famous Wallack Testimonial in New York, on the 21st of May, 1888, when Lawrence Barrett played the Ghost; Frank Mayo the King; John Gilbert Polonius; Eben Plympton Laertes; John A. Lane Horatio; Joseph Wheelock the First Actor; Milnes Levick the Second Actor; Henry Edwards the Priest; Joseph Jefferson and William J. Florence the Grave-diggers; Miss Kellogg Gertrude; Miss Coghlan the Player Queen; and Madame Modjeska Ophelia to the Hamlet of Edwin Booth.
The first record of any performance of Hamlet in New York, as has been shown, was at the theatre in Chappel Street, November 26, 1761. On the 26th of November, 1861, Mr. Booth played the same part at the Winter Garden, on Broadway. The coincidence was not noticed at the time, and no doubt was purely accidental. It was a very pleasant coincidence, nevertheless, and it is certainly a happy fact that Edwin Booth should have been selected by chance to celebrate upon the New York stage the centenary of Hamlet in New York.
Curtain.