Revision by Excision: Rewriting Gertrude

Summary

From 1755 until 1900 (and not infrequently from 1900 to World War II) actors playing Gertrude found in their scripts a significantly different role than those in either the First Folio or Second Quarto texts. That Gertrude's role was both radically and nearly consistently cut throughout the era will scarcely be startling news to anyone acquainted with the performance practices of the nineteenth century. But the consequences of such cutting may be. Close comparison of Gertrude's role as it appears in the Folio and Second Quarto texts with the role as it emerges from the standard nineteenth century version reveals the potential for subtle but powerful revision inherent - though often nearly invisible - in cutting.

To grasp the significance of this, we must understand that the Shakespearian actor grounds decisions about the role in the patterns of thought, speech, and action inherent in the text. Cuts, or conversely, added lines and stage directions, can create patterns at odds with those of the original texts. Many actors, when asked to play a cut role, will attempt to act the implications of the full version, to play the role as it was written rather than as it was cut. Yet since the editions of Hamlet most commonly used as nineteenth-century promptbooks regularly omitted lines, added stage directions, and, on occasion, revised lines, the actors had no choice but to respond to a very different set of performance signals. In Gertrude's case, these editions destroyed many of the verbal patterns of the role and eviscerated patterns of visual imagery established by the Folio and Second Quarto texts. The result was a very different Gertrude.