Introduction: Shakespeare and the Theatre Critic
c.1700 Colley Cibber on Thomas Betterton as Hamlet
c.1738-9 Thomas Davies on Cibber as Justice Shallow in 2 Henry
IV
(?1744-68) Thomas Davies and James Boaden on David Garrick and Mrs
Pritchard in Macbeth
(uncertain date) Thomas Davies on Garrick as King Lear
1774-5 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg on Garrick as Hamlet
22 May 1776 Henry Bate on Garrick as King Lear
(uncertain date) Charles Lamb on Robert Bensley as Malvolio and
James William Dodd as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night
(uncertain date) Sir Walter Scott on John Philip Kemble as Macbeth
and in Coriolanus's death scene
(uncertain date) Julian Charles Young on Kemble as Coriolanus and
Sarah Siddons as Volumnia in Coriolanus
15 Feb. 1814 William Hazlitt on Edmund Kean as Richard III
27 Feb. 1814 Thomas Barnes on Kean as Richard III
14 Mar. 1814 Hazlitt on Kean as Hamlet
21 Jan. 1816 Hazlitt on A Midsummer Night's Dream, adapted by
Frederic Reynolds, with music by Sir Henry Bishop
4 Nov. 1816 Leigh Hunt on Kean as Timon of Athens
21 Dec. 1817 John Keats on Kean as a Shakespearian actor; with John
Hamilton Reynolds on Kean as Richard Duke of York (in the Merrivale
adaptation of the three Henry VI plays)
4 Oct. 1818 Leigh Hunt on Kean as Othello
31 Oct. 1819 Leigh Hunt on William Charles Macready as Richard
III
5 Dec. 1819 Leigh Hunt on Macready as Coriolanus
25 Apr. 1820 anon. review of Kean as King Lear
c.1832 James E. Murdoch on Kean as Posthumus in Cymbeline
c.1837 Helena Faucit on herself as Hermione, with Macready as
Leontes, in The Winter's Tale
14 Fen. 1838 John Forster on Macready as King Lear
18 Mar. 1838 Forster on Macready as Coriolanus
1844 James Robinson Planche's description on Ben Webster's
neo-Elizabethan The Taming of the Shrew
15 Oct. 1853 Henry Morley on A Midsummer Night's Dream produced by
Samuel Phelps
3 Sept. 1854 Morley on Phelps's Pericles
1856 Theordor Fontane on Kean's production of The Winter's Tale
24 Apr. 1858 anon. review of Kean's production of (and performance
in) King Lear
(uncertain date) Henry Austin Clapp on Charlotte Cushman as Queen
Katharine in Henry VIII
10 Apr. 1875 Joseph Knight on Tommaso Salvini as Othello
Jan. 1879 Edward Dutton Cook on Henry Irving as Hamlet
(uncertain date) William Winter on Irving as Shylock
8 Nov. 1880 anon. Times review of Edwin Booth as Hamlet
6 July 1895 Bernard Shaw on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, produced
by Augustin Daly
15 July 1895 Shaw on Daly's A Midsummer Night's Dream
(uncertain date) Winter on Ada Rehan as Kate in The Taming of the
Shrew
2 Oct. 1897 Shaw on Johnston Forbes-Robertson as Hamlet
1898 William Archer on Julius Caesar produced by Herbert Beerbohm
Tree
5 Feb. 1898 St John Hankin on Julius Caesar produced by Herbert
Beerbohm Tree
30 Sept. 1899 Max Beerbohm on Beerbohm Tree's production of King
John
13 Nov. 1899 anon. review of Richard II produced by William
Poel
4 De. 1899 C. E. Montague on Frank Benson as Richard II
30 May 1903 Beerbohm on Much Ado About Nothing with Ellen Terry as
Beatrice and designs by Gordon Craig
7 Nov. 1903 Beerbohm on The Tempest at the Court Theatre,
London
8 Apr. 1905 Beerbohm on H. B. Irving as Hamlet
28 Sept. 1912 John Palmer on The Winter's Tale directed by Harley
Granville-Barker
1 Jan. 1922 Granville-Barker on Twelfth Night directed (in French)
by Jacques Copeau
20 Nov. 1922 Stark Young on John Barrymore as Hamlet
1923 Herbert Farjeon on Nigel Playfair's production of The Merry
Wives of Windsor, with Edith Evans as Mistress Page
30 Aug. 1925 Hubert Griffith on Hamlet directed by Barry
Jackson
30 Sept. 1933 Virginia Woolf, on Twelfth Night directed by Tyrone
Guthrie
18 Nov. 1934 James Agate on John Gielgud as Hamlet in his own
production
17 Oct. 1935 Agate on Gielgud's production of Romeo and Juliet,
with Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Laurence Olivier, and Edith Evans
12 Nov. 1937 John Mason Brown on Orson Welles's production of
Julius Caesar
1944 Ronald Harwood on Donald Wolfit as Lear
1947 Kenneth Tynan on Olivier as Richard III
1947 Tynan on Olivier and Ralph Richardson in Henry IV, Parts One
and Two
1947 T. C. Worsley on Guthrie's production of Henry VIII
1950 Richard David on Measure for Measure directed by Peter Brook,
with Gielgud and Barbara Jefford
1955 Evelyn Waugh on Titus Andronicus directed by Brook, with
Olivier as Titus
1959 John Russell Brown on All's Well that Ends Well directed by
Guthrie
1959 Laurence Kitchin on Olivier as Coriolanus, directed by Peter
Hall
1962 Kitchin on Brook's production of King Lear with Paul Scofield
as Lear
1964 Ronald Bryden on Olivier as Othello
27 Aug. 1965 Bryden on Peter Hall's production of Hamlet with David
Warner as Hamlet
1970 Robert Speaight on Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's
Dream
1973 Peter Thomson on Richard II directed by John Barton
1976 Roger Warren on Macbeth, directed by Trevor Nunn, with Ian
McKellen and Judi Dench
1978 Warren on Love's Labour's Lost, directed by Barton
29 June 1984 Stanley Wells on Antony Sher as Richard III, directed
by Bill Alexander
1985 Nicholas Shrimpton on a production of the first quarto version
of Hamlet
1985 Warren on Howard Davies's production of Troilus and Cressida
at Stratford-upon-Avon
1986 Wells on Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V, directed by
Michael Bogdanov
11 Apr. 1987 Michael Billington on Antony and Cleopatra directed by
Peter Hall
1987 Wells on Titus Andronicus, directed by Deborah Warner at
Stratford-upon-Avon
1989 R. L. Smallwood on Othello, directed by Trevor Nunn at
Stratford-upon-Avon
3 Oct. 1990 Paul Taylor on The Tempest, directed by Brook
6 Dec. 1991 Taylor on As You Like It, directed by Declan Donellan
for Cheek by Jowl
1993 Peter Holland on Richard III, directed by Barrie Rutter for
The Northern Broadsides
1996 Smallwood on The Comedy of Errors, directed by Tim Supple
Index
Stanley Wells is general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare and co-editor of the Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare.
`Wells published this garland upon his retirement; rather than
accept presents, he has bestowed a charming going-away gift of his
own'
Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol.32, No.4
`Students entering the world of theatre history would benefit from
this compilation; it would profit many a director as well'
Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol.32, No.4
`provides a wealth of information. Taken together, the best
commentaries fire the imagination while delivering a master class
in doing Shakespeare'
Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol.32, No.4
`Read straight through, this anthology reveals major trends in
adapting Shakespeare ... The collection also allows one to turn up
wonderful hidden surprises. Browsers will find their own
favourites'
Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol.32, No.4
`collects eighty illuminating appraisals of Shakespearean
performances between 1700 and 1996 ... Wells has made savvy
choices, and annotated them with care; what results is an enticing
grand tour through three centuries of post-Renaissance playing'
Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol.32, No.4
`very useful for its wealth of details about acting styles, and
especially for the brief annotations Wells offers to each essay,
explaining allusions and circumstances that might be lost to
general (and even specialist) readers'
SEL, 41,2 (Spring 2001)
`wonderfully vivid descriptions of embodied Shakespeare from the
early eighteenth-century ... to the present ... Wells's compilation
inaugurates the 'Oxford Shakespeare Topics', a promising series of
short, sharp studies.'
Plays International, Sept/Oct. 2000.
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