Macready, Irving, and Beerbohm-Tree : image and the play scene from Hamlet

The-Play-Within-the-Play scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet represents the author's version of what was later to be called mediated perception. That is to say, he uses the play scene as the means of communicating to the audience, as well as the characters on stage, the reality of the situation that exists within the court of Elsinore Castle by giving them a visual image of that reality in association with the spoken word. Image, then, becomes the key component as Shakespeare holds the mirror up to his own medium and reveals the essence of the theatre. The visual image is also central to the development of the Victorian theatre. This era saw great changes in the theatre as pictorialization became more popular as a way of enhancing the text. But the way pictorialization was used during this period, and the results achieved with it, are as varied as the men who used it. This thesis focuses on the fusion of image and text and how they were combined in the Play Scene from Hamlet by three Victorian actor / managers: William Charles Macready, Henry Irving, and Herbert Beerbohm- Tree. These men were so effective in achieving this blend that they inspired others, namely George Scharf, Bernard Partridge, and Antonin Clair Forestier respectively, to create works of art based on their productions of the Play Scene. The evidence provided by these works of art contributes significantly to each discussion.