The saying goes in theatrical circles that Shakespeare “doesn’t pay.” And yet the editions of Shakespeare outnumber those of any other book except the Bible, and many new editions appear each season. It seems then that though we read Shakespeare we do not go to see his plays performed. Apparently it pays a publisher to place Shakespeare on the shelf, but it does not pay a producer to place him on the stage.
I cannot accept this statement without qualification, for I have known years—not far back—when Shakespeare was a regular and profitable feature of the stage. My knowledge of Shakespeare on the stage began with Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, Henry Irving, John McCullough, Salvini and the famous women, Modjeska, Ellen Terry, and others who were their associates in dramatic art. In recent years I have listened to Mantell, Mansfield, Sothern and Marlowe. I have seen some of these players many times in their favorite roles. I am sure that there are few modern plays compelling enough in interest to draw one to see them more than a half dozen times. But it was a common thing a few years ago to hear people say that they had seen Booth or Irving a dozen times in a single role.
In those days Shakespeare was played not only with profit by the great stars, but by stock-companies as well. Augustin Daly, during several successive, and successful, years produced the Comedies with his strong company. And these were not gala performances. They were steady going attractions. In reckoning stage successes today, we consider a run of 100 nights a matter for celebration. In his time, Edwin Booth played “Hamlet” for 100 nights in succession in one New York theater, and Irving played “The Merchant of Venice” for the greater part of a whole season. Runs of a single play of Shakespeare for several weeks were not uncommon.
But still they say today that Shakespeare on the stage does not pay. That means, of course, that we folks of today do not go to hear Shakespeare. Why don’t we go? We did when Booth, Barrett, Irving and Salvini played. And if Henry Irving should bring us today a production of The Merchant of Venice such as he made familiar to the theater-goers of his time, Shakespeare would pay again. If we do not go to hear Shakespeare played it is because we want Shakespeare only when it is produced and played as well as Shakespeare reads. When a man of genius and imagination gives us Shakespeare as “big as we find him in his plays,” we will surely go to hear him on the stage today—as our parents did in former days, and as we did yesterday.
W. D. Moffat
Editor
The Mentor Association
ESTABLISHED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POPULAR INTEREST IN ART, LITERATURE, SCIENCE, HISTORY, NATURE, AND TRAVEL