It does not seem to have struck Garrick that the scenes he “pruned” might have some significance in the scheme of the author’s drama independently of their individual characteristics.
To take another instance. In Garrick’s version of “Romeo and Juliet,” reprinted in Dolby’s “British Theatre” (1823), the following paragraph is inserted underneath the list of characters:
“The scenery in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Covent Garden this season (1823) is very grand. That of the ‘Funeral of Juliet’ is truly solemn and impressive. The architectural arrangement of the interior of the church is most chaste and appropriate: the slow approach of the funeral procession, the tolling of the bell, and the heart-saddening tones of the choristers, swelling in all the sublime richness of the minor key, make an impression on the feelings of the auditory which can never be forgotten.”
Here, then, are illustrations, in two plays, of methods adopted by actors—methods still in use—which are a direct interference with the poet’s dramatic intentions. They are methods, moreover, which Elizabethan actors would have regarded as unintelligent, because they turned good drama into bad drama, and created inconsistencies between character and situation. The earliest acting-version of “Romeo and Juliet” (1597) has some eight hundred lines less than the unshortened play (1599), and yet there is no entire scene omitted, nor any of the characters; and those scenes which have dropped out of the play, on the modern stage, are those least curtailed in the 1597 version. In the first acting-version of “Hamlet,” published in 1603, there is still more striking evidence of the Elizabethan actor’s skill in compressing a play of Shakespeare’s when it was necessary. Not only was the play considerably shortened, without the omission of scenes and characters, but it was slightly reconstructed. Herr Emile Devrient, the greatest exponent of the part of Hamlet in Germany, contended that this first quarto was a better constructed play than either the 1604 version or that of the folio. In fact, with the faulty dialogue amended from the perfect text, this 1603 actor’s copy, which has 1,757 fewer lines than in the full play, and 557 lines less than in the modern acting edition, would be the best model from which to shorten the play so as to bring it within the limit of a two hours’ representation. That Shakespeare sanctioned either the compression or the reconstruction for use in the Globe is not likely. But that he tolerated the alterations is possible, since he would recognize that his own less regular plot, though more artistically suited as the framework for Hamlet’s irregular mind, was too subtle and elaborate to be effective on the public stage.
With regard to acting-versions, therefore, it may be contended that the interests of the author are more often than not opposed to those of the modern actor in so far as the latter considers the author’s drama to be tedious whenever it fails to enhance the acting merits of some particular character or characters in the play. Thus it is questionable whether, in the absence of the author, the actors are the persons best qualified to make stage-versions of his dramas. Their point of view is rarely the same as that of the author, and if it is necessary to shorten a play they can hardly be expected to undertake the work entirely to the satisfaction of the author, nor yet in the interests of the public, since the value of the fable may or may not be a matter of moment to an actor. If, then, Shakespeare’s plays are a valuable asset to the artistic wealth of the nation, the amount of “pruning” they require for the stage should be determined by competent experts. Unfortunately, actors believe that a scholar is not qualified to advise on the matter, owing to his lack of what they call “a sense of the theatre.” This “sense” would no doubt be differently interpreted by different actors. Broadly speaking, it may be taken to mean the ability to forecast what degree of emotion or sympathy certain incidents can arouse in an audience when they are seen represented on the stage. Pope rejected the Gonzalo dialogue in the second act of “The Tempest,” asserting that it was not Shakespeare’s because courtiers who had been just shipwrecked on a desert island would not indulge in idle gossip! Here Pope missed the theatre point of view. The audience see in the first act an old man who once had been a King, but who was cruelly and unjustly thrust out of his kingdom, and exposed with his baby daughter in a frail and rotten bark to the mercy of the perilous ocean. Moreover, it hears that the very men who did this wrong are now themselves shipwrecked on this enchanted island, where Prospero is living. What the audience is curious to see, then, in the second act, is not noblemen who are suffering from shipwreck, but ignoble men, who merit the contempt of those who look upon them, and who deserve the just rebuke they receive from the man who is once more restored to his rights. The question as to what these noblemen have themselves suffered in the course of being shipwrecked, Shakespeare rightly judged was not one that an audience, under the circumstances, could be interested in. Then, again, to take a textual illustration from “King Lear” quoted by Steevens, the commentator. He writes in his “Advertisement to the Reader”:
“The dialogue might, indeed, sometimes be lengthened by yet other insertions than have been made (from the quartos), without advantage either to its spirit or beauty, as in the following instance:
“‘Lear. No.
“‘Kent. Yes.
“‘Lear. No, I say.
“‘Kent. I say, yea.’
“Here the quartos add:
“‘Lear. No, no; they would not.
“‘Kent. Yes; they have.’
“By the admission of the negation and affirmation, would any new idea be gained?”