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Sarah Siddons’s Performances as Hamlet: Breaching the Breeches Part

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10509580701757219

1740-4657

Celestine Woo,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

Abstract Sarah Siddons performed the role of Hamlet nine times over thirty years, reviving this early role once she was an established star, and playing it till the age of fifty. Yet this occurrence has hitherto drawn scanty analysis that has often been rife with contradiction and inaccuracies. For an actress of such stature to have played a role so central to the Shakespeare canon deserves deeper scrutiny and clarification. I read her choice of costume as an encapsulation of how she foregrounds and complicates gender. The costume Siddons designed for the part, neither conventionally male nor female, resists the inevitable sexualization that was then associated with breeches parts, and instead, indicates Siddons’s radical choice to play Hamlet without breeches. The boldness of Siddons’s choice of both role and costume lies in the distinction, little discussed, between traditional breeches parts and cross‐gendered roles. She prompted James Boaden and Ann Radcliffe, among others, to an inchoate recognition of the exteriority and constructedness of gender. I particularize current discussions regarding Siddons’s manipulations of and contributions to gender discourse, and situate Siddons’s performances within the history of theater, gender, and Romanticism. Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge with much appreciation the input, advice, and feedback I have received in the process of writing this article. In particular, I have benefited from the comments of Jonathan Mulrooney, Jane Moody, Tracy C. Davis, Kevin Gilmartin, and Colin Harris. Notes [1] To this end, see my note in ANQ (American Notes and Queries) entitled, “Sarah Siddons as Hamlet: Three Decades, Five Towns, Absent Breeches, and Rife Critical Confusion,” in which I detail at greater length some of the evidence discussed herein, as well as representative inaccuracies within theater scholarship. [2] For evidence regarding Worcester, see my discussion of Rev. Henry Bate’s letter further on: the letter indicates that Siddons played Hamlet in that town prior to Bate’s writing the epistle in August 1775. The Manchester production also featured Elizabeth Inchbald as the Queen and her husband as the King. The Harvard Theatre Collection houses a reproduction of the Manchester Playbill of 19 March 1777, listing the Inchbalds in these roles. The playbill also indicates that the production was of Garrick’s adaptation of Hamlet; that this was Siddons’s second appearance as Hamlet; and that her husband, William Siddons, appeared in the afterpiece. [3] This is corroborated by two Bristol reviews that I discuss further on. [4] I have not been able to discover exact dates for Siddons’s performances in Liverpool. However, it seems likely that she played here in the years before her second London début in 1782. Roger Manvell mentions her Hamlet production there on page 47, and refers to Siddons’s own mention of it in a letter to Elizabeth Inchbald (Manvell 50). Yvonne ffrench mentions the performance but does not provide sources or dates, although she implies that Siddons’s Hamlet performances in these cities took place prior to her relocating to London. (See her p. 37 and passim: she mentions Manchester and Liverpool, respectively, and Siddons’s performance as Gertrude in Bath in 1778.) If these confirmed dates are plotted (see Appendix) and one believes F.W. Price’s assertion that her 1781 performance of Hamlet was her sixth (167), then this likely posits two performances in Liverpool, and probably two in Manchester also. [5] Thomas Campbell, Siddons’s biographer, states that she performed in June and July of 1802 (316). Mary Sackville Hamilton’s inscription provides the date Tuesday 27 July, 1802. W.J. Lawrence claims Siddons performed Hamlet twice in June. [6] This caricature refers to the scandal that erupted when Galindo’s wife released an open letter in 1809 charging Siddons with misbehavior toward her husband, and currently resides in the Harvard Theatre Library. This letter is discussed in Campbell. [7] For more in‐depth discussion of breeches parts, see Kristina Straub and Lesley Ferris. For an older source, see A.S. Turberville. [8] This tradition in England dates back to Nell Gwynn, the famous actress and mistress of Charles II. Peg Woffington and Dorothy Jordan were famed for their breeches roles in Siddons’s time, and were the models against which Siddons’s had to measure her own standing in breeches. [9] Incidentally, it is apt to compare Rosalind with Hamlet because firstly, Rosalind remains cross‐dressed for the majority of the play (As You Like It, Acts 2 to 4), and secondly, she is Shakespeare’s most long‐winded female character, speaking more lines than anyone other than Hamlet. Twelfth Night is unusual in that Viola, the cross‐dressed heroine, does not in fact ever return to female garb, although this fact does not prevent the majority of productions from bowing to traditional expectations and closing the play with Viola again in her “woman’s weeds” (Twelfth Night 5.1.273). All Shakespeare citations are taken from the Riverside edition. [10] The paucity of information regarding Siddons as Hamlet extends to the circumstances initiating this particular choice of role. In the early instances (i.e. prior to 1782), it is possible that Siddons, an unknown ingénue who had failed her first attempt at a London début and retreated ignominiously to the provinces, and who therefore possessed no clout, was instructed by a director or manager to take on the role as a curiosity, as was not uncommon. However, I make the assumption that certainly, by the time she acted Hamlet in 1802, Siddons was enough of a star to dictate which roles she wished to take on, and where and how. She certainly had a great deal of control over her roles in London. [11] Reviews from The Morning Herald and The Morning Chronicle are quoted in Pearce’s The Jolly Duchess, a miscellany of theatrical anecdotes. Peace does not provide the exact dates of either review, but he does say that they were in reference to the performance at Covent Garden on 10 February 1785, so presumably both were written in 1785. [12] The writer of The Jolly Duchess calls it “a consciousness of personal defects” (86). This attitude has sometimes been passed down through theater history, as when Kenneth Tynan says in 1953 that she wore “a curious shawl‐like garment to mask her bulk” (41). [13] Rev. Henry Bate; I discuss this quotation further on. [14] Of Mary Sackville Hamilton herself, we know very little. She was the daughter of the Right Honourable H. Sackville Hamilton, who served as Under Secretary in the Civil Department, Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and Commissioner of His Majesty’s Revenue in Ireland—the last of which presumably explains their presence in Dublin. He also seems to have been a theater enthusiast. Mary’s book of sketches was bought, according to the British Museum records, at the “sale of Mary Hamilton’s effects” by R.B. Bennett (who later sold the book to the British Museum, where it currently resides)—implying that Hamilton was unmarried at the time of her death, and that presumably, her sketches were not commissioned or designed as a gift, but meant simply for her own satisfaction. [15] Because of the scarcity of factual information available pertaining to Siddons’s performances as Hamlet—there is no indication of whether the costume depicted by Mary Sackville Hamilton was Siddons’s standard choice for the role, or whether her costume varied over the years—I will solely discuss her costume as sketched by Hamilton, which Siddons wore during her Dublin performances from 1802 to 1805. However, my discussion of the implications of her playing Hamlet will consider the entire span of her performances, from 1775–1805. [16] Another sign of the affectionate nature of this book of memorabilia is the fact that Hamilton includes at the beginning two frontispieces: a notice announcing Siddons’s upcoming final reading on 16 March 1803 as a benefit for a hospital, and a review of a biography of the Kemble family. [17] Recent times have seen an explosion of critical interest in Sarah Siddons. Following the 1999 art exhibition at the Getty Museum devoted to portraits of Siddons (Cultivating Celebrity: Portraiture as Publicity in the Career of Sarah Siddons. July 27–September 19, 1999. Curated by Robyn Asleson), two collections of essays, edited by Asleson and largely focused upon Siddons, have featured the work of noted scholars such as Robyn Asleson, Joseph Roach, Frederick Burwick, Heather McPherson, Aileen Ribeiro, and Shearer West. Their insights, together with those of other Siddons scholars such as Pat Rogers, Michael S. Wilson, Kristina Straub, and Laura J. Rosenthal, have shaped today’s understanding of the celebrated actress as a savvy and conscious participant within the gender discourse of her day. [18] Unfortunately, Siddons’s memoirs do not contain any mention of her portrayal of Hamlet. [19] Senelick, Tynan, and others discuss the comedic aspects of male cross‐dressers as well as female. [20] By way of contrast, Gill Perry points out that visual images of Mary Robinson and Dorothy Jordan employed sexual ambiguity to play on notions of class mobility (63). [21] See Shearer West, “Body Connoisseurship,” for a discussion of the growing focus of theater critics on the bodies of actors, both male and female (154). [22] See H. J., “On Females Enacting Male Characters,” which I discuss further on. Also, Elinor Hughes, writing for the Boston Herald in 1937, seems in fact sick and tired of women playing Shakespearean men. She exclaims with exasperation, “This history of our stage gives case after case of feminine Romeos and Hamlets, Shylocks and Cardinal Wolseys, but, barring a return to Elizabethan days the boy Juliets, Ophelias and Portias are as dead as the dodo. Just why Sarah Siddons wished to play Hamlet, what inspired Charlotte Cushman to try her hand at Romeo—with her sister, Susan, as Juliet—what prompted Lucille La Verne to play Shylock in London a few seasons ago … are questions that it is amusing to ask and impossible to answer.” Once again, we have a response that considers Siddons’s effort at Hamlet to be chance and curious, gotten up for a thrill, and not presumably as “serious” as acting Juliet, Ophelia, or Portia would be. [23] In addition, Mary Shelley possibly wrote a fascinating dialogue entitled “Byron & Shelley” that records a conversation between these two about Hamlet. The dialogue appeared anonymously in the New Monthly Magazine in 1830. See Bate 574n11. [24] See Bate 135. [25] In his infamous adaptation of Hamlet, for instance, Garrick eliminated the grave diggers, but audiences responded poorly to the loss of these beloved comic characters. See Burnim. Garrick also played Polonius with an unaccustomed dignity, which Thomas Davies claims “appeared to the audience flat and insipid” (3.42). Audiences in his era apparently preferred the doddering dotard. [26] Rev. Henry Bate’s letter to Garrick, which I discuss further on, seems to hint at a homologous interest in Hamlet shared by Siddons and Garrick. [27] Untitled article, January 21, 1923. See the reference list at the end of this article, under “Bernhardt.” The article reports that Bernhardt made the above remarks after her performance as Hamlet on May 20, 1899. [28] All quotes from Boaden are taken from his Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons except for the quote in a later footnote from Mrs. Sarah Siddons. He wrote the Memoirs in 1827; I cite the 1896 edition. [29] William Smith Clark notes, “Siddons had practiced under [Galindo, a master fencer] so successfully that she astonished the Dublin cognoscenti with her skillful exhibition” (111). [30] This was well after Siddons’s run of Hamlet performances, but the attitudes expressed herein typify the terms of the debate about proper feminine behavior, on and off stage, that began with the appearance of women onstage after the Restoration and continued in full force throughout the Romantic and Victorian eras. [31] For a defense of cross‐dressing in the same journal appearing a year later (1823), see “Female Actors.” The anonymous writer argues with William Prynne, the fiery antitheatrical Puritan of Shakespearean times who spoke so stridently against acting at all. Not surprisingly, Prynne objected to cross‐dressing. This writer’s reference to Prynne indicates how alive and ongoing the debate continued to be throughout the Romantic period. [32] Carlson develops this point at length in her book, In the Theatre of Romanticism. [33] F.W. Price presents the possibility that Radcliffe may even have seen Siddons in the part. Radcliffe’s wording above seems to imply she has not seen Siddons enact Hamlet, but if Radcliffe had seen Siddons in other plays, she would then have been familiar with Siddons’s strengths and abilities as an actress, and been able to extrapolate them to form her interpretation of Hamlet. [34] William Smith Clark quotes this anonymous unpublished diarist, whom he identifies as “a twenty‐one year old [sic] Dame Street solicitor (name now unknown)” (108). [35] The review indicates the following bibliographic information in a footnote: Fitzgerald, Percy, M.A., The Kembles: an Account of the Kemble Family, including the Lives of Mrs. Siddons, and her brother John Philip Kemble, London: Tinsley Bros., 1871. It notes that Fitzgerald is “author of the Life of David Garrick &c, 2 vols.” but provides no page number. [36] Qtd. in W.J. Lawrence. The implication here is that Siddons acted Hamlet in Worcester that year. [37] Heather McPherson, in her study of caricatures of Siddons (“Picturing Tragedy”), examines the role of caricature in shaping cultural and political debate. She does not, however, discuss this particular caricature. [38] This depiction may hint that Siddons did in fact attire herself differently for this final performance of Hamlet than in Hamilton’s costume sans breeches. It is however impossible to say for certain with such slim and dubious evidence. [39] Penciled onto the copy of the caricature at the Harvard Theatre Collection are the words “Mrs. Galindo” underneath the woman at the arras, and “Galindo” under the man. There are portraits of fencers shown on the wall, and a side caption reads, “Engraved for the Dublin Satirist.” [40] Boaden speaks of “her unexpected powers of almost masculine declamation” (Mrs. Sarah Siddons 1: 28); Hazlitt avers that the “spirit” of Siddons is “more masculine” than that of Sir Walter Scott [qtd. in Wilson 139, 142]; and many critics at the time employ similar language. See for instance Pat Rogers’s mention of George Ticknor’s reaction to Siddons (Rogers 52–3). [41] See Heather McPherson, “Picturing Tragedy,” for a discussion of Siddons’s familiarity with the marketplace aspects of her public image. [42] See Rogers, Wilson, Roach, McPherson “Painting,” both articles by West, Asleson, and Burwick. Ribeiro and Burwick have explored how Siddons used costume and gesture to craft her desired image, and several scholars, particularly West and McPherson, as well as Shelley Bennett and Mark Leonard in their joint article, have analyzed portraits of Siddons and their resonance within and impact upon the aesthetic and artistic worlds. [43] See also Gill Perry, who discusses the “unfeminine” and therefore socially dangerous aspects of cross‐dressing (72–3). [44] F.W. Price did complete a relatively thorough amount of research on this topic in 1976, which he then published in Notes and Queries as a study of Ann Radcliffe and Siddons. He cites a study by Naomi Royde‐Smith that mentions Siddons’s playing Hamlet in Liverpool; Royde‐Smith writes of Siddons that “encouraged by [Tate] Wilkinson, she played Hamlet, as she had played Rosalind, in a costume of the most inconvenient modesty” (qtd. in Price 167). So Siddons’s performance of Hamlet did excite some interest a few decades ago, but produced no in‐depth critical analysis. Additional informationNotes on contributorsCelestine WooCelestine Woo is Assistant Professor of English at Empire State College.