Gilbert Murray's
translation of the "Hippolytus" of Euripides. Here, then, is the only
definite attempt which has been made in our time to regulate the speech
of actors in their speaking of verse. No problem of the theatre is more
important, for it is only by the quality of the verse, and by the
clearness, beauty, and expressiveness of its rendering, that a play of
Shakespeare is to be distinguished, when we see it on the stage, from
any other melodrama. "I see no reason," says Lamb, in the profoundest
essay which has ever been written on the acting of drama, "to think that
if the play of Hamlet were written over again by some such writer as
Banks or Lillo, retaining the process of the story, but totally omitting
all the poetry of it, all the divine features of Shakespeare, his
stupendous intellect; and only taking care to give us enough of
passionate dialogue, which Banks or Lillo were never at a loss to
furnish; I see not how the effect could be much different upon an
audience, nor how the actor has it in his power to represent Shakespeare
to us differently from his representation of Banks or Lillo." It is
precisely by his speaking of that poetry, which one is accustomed to
hear hurried over or turned into mere oratory, that the actor might, if
he were conscious of the necessity of doing it, and properly trained to
do it, bring before the audience what is essential in Shakespeare.
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