ABSTRACT
A large repertory, made up of the best plays, with Shakespeare’s at the head, was what the eighteenth century American actors offered their public, and with success. It looked as if the nineteenth century should offer a stage whereon the spectator might see practically all of Shakespeare’s plays well and often presented. Incomparably great was the service rendered by the former to the appreciation of Shakespeare in America. The tide has ebbed since then almost beyond the horizon, but so long as the memory of Booth’s Hamlet shall last, the wave still bears the bark of Shakespeare, and the sun is still shining upon its sails. A great theatre there so heavily endowed as to be entirely free from the caprices of the multitude and devoted only to the best of dramas would mean more for Shakespeare on the American stage than any other influence that could be made practically perfect.
