Abstract
This chapter examines key moments in the history of dressing British productions of Hamlet and argues that Hamlet’s mourning dress plays a significant role in constructing the cultural and political meaning of the self, or subject, in the play. The chapter discusses what Hamlet might have looked like in the play’s first production, defiantly dressed in his ‘inky cloak of solemn black’, and the meanings this dark figure might have produced on the Globe stage in 1600. It offers a history of Hamlet costumes on the London stage, landing on the reception of Henry Irving in the leading role in 1874, then moves to recent productions of the play.
And then you have some again that keeps one suit Of jests, as a man is known by one suit of Apparel, and gentlemen quote his jests down In their tables before they come to the play, as thus: ‘Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?’ and ‘You owe me A quarter’s wages’, and ‘My coat wants a cullison’, And ‘Your beer is sour’.
Hamlet Quarto 1, scene 9.
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Notes
- 1.
As Zachary Lesser summarises, the first printed edition of Hamlet has been rehabilitated as a lively, theatrical version of the play in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: ‘A nod towards the “theatricality” of Q1 seems by now almost obligatory in editorial introductions and essays on Q1…’ (Lesser 2015, 216; see for example David E. Jones 1988, 104–10; Orgel 2006, 13–54, 22; Holderness and Loughrey 2014, 14–6; Irace 1998, 20; see Marcus 1996, 150–2 for a somewhat sceptical account of Q1’s possible performance origins; see Dillon for a detailed critique of the assumption that Q1 is a performance text). See Lesser for a detailed history of editorial responses to Q1. Lesser suggestively points out that theatrically inflected rehabilitations of this edition, notoriously named a ‘bad’ Quarto by Duthie in 1941, are part of a long scholarly project of deflecting questions about the historical origins of this text (217). However, the passage quoted here, exclusive to this edition of the play, and the reference to the Ghost’s night-gown (on which Lesser bases a chapter) certainly offer insights into theatrical practice that the ‘authoritative’ texts do not.
- 2.
The most notorious instance, purportedly from a local paper, was a review title “Tubby or not tubby, fat is the question” (Croall 160).
- 3.
- 4.
Charles Kean’s medieval-style tunic sports that ‘van Dyck’ collar in images published as late as 1838 (Mander and Mitchenson 104). Macready’s ‘medieval’ garb had Elizabethan-inflected puffed sleeves and a particularly lavish version of the falling collar and Caroline cuffs. By the time of his Princess’s Theatre Hamlet in 1850, Charles Kean’s tunic is collarless and much more medieval-looking (51), as is Samuel Phelps’s at Sadlers Wells in 1847 (96); but a version of that falling lace collar can still be seen on William Creswick’s Surrey Theatre Hamlet costume in 1849 (33) and Barry Sullivan’s at the Haymarket in 1852 (51). Macready’s 1849 tunic at the Haymarket is collarless, but retains the puffed sleeves and white cuffs that, too, recall the Elizabethan/van Dyck look (29). Charlotte Crampton wore both falling band collar and lace cuffs with her decorated black tunic for her populist impersonation of Edwin Forrest’s Hamlet (Howard 79), her neck hung with the Order of the Elephant, even though in the extant images of the actor in the role he wears neither (Howard 77); the eclectic mix of the medieval and the Carolinian ‘Van Dyke’ were, it seemed, so generic that a popular Hamlet impersonation by a woman could not be plausible without them. Even in her supposedly ‘archeologically correct’ production of 1864 with ‘new and appropriate costumes (Howard 81, image 79), Alice Marriott, who Tony Howard argues ‘made the female Hamlet respectable in England’ (Howard 80) abandoned the collar but made up for it with the lacy prominence of her cuffs (Howard 79).
- 5.
From an episode of the television culture show, the South Bank Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrMoWcHyw9c.
- 6.
See Turner, Hayward et al. (2015, 616–7, for an analysis of the challenges of researching the history of mental health resourcing in the UK.
- 7.
In a later touring company, the pair were replaced by one black, one white actor: Romayne Andrews as Rosencranzt, Eleanor Wyld as Guildenstern, respectively.
Productions Discussed (All Productions are of Hamlet)
Barbican Theatre/Sonia Friedman Productions. 2015. Lindsay Turner (director), Katrina Lindsay (costume designer), Es Devlin (designer), Barbican Theatre, London.
Cheek by Jowl. 1990. Declan Donnelan (director), Nick Omerod (designer), Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, then touring. https://www.cheekbyjowl.com/productions/hamlet.
English Touring Theatre. 1993. Stephen Unwin (director), Bunnie Christie (designer), Lyceum Theatre, Crew, then touring; Donmar Warehouse, London.
Lyceum. 1874. Henry Irving as Hamlet, Hezekiah Bateman (manager), Lyceum Theatre, London.
National Theatre. 1999. John Caird (director), Tim Hatley (designer), Lytellton Theatre, National Theatre, London.
———. 2010. Nicholas Hytner (director), Vicki Mortimer (designer), Olivier Theatre, National Theatre London.
Peter Hall Company. 1994. Peter Hall (director), Lucy Hall (designer), Gielgud Theatre, London.
Royal Court. 1981. Richard Eyre (director), William Dudley (designer), Royal Court, London.
Royal Shakespeare Company. 1965. Peter Hall (director), Ann Curtis (Costumes), John Berry (Designer, John Berry), Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon. https://www.rsc.org.uk/hamlet/past-productions/peter-hall-1965-production.
———. 2016. Simon Godwin (director), Paul Wills (Designer), Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford upon Avon. https://www.rsc.org.uk/hamlet/past-productions/simon-godwin-2016-production.
Shakespeare’s Globe. 2000. Giles Block (director), Jenny Tiramani (designer), Shakespeare’s Globe, London.
Young Vic. 2011a. Ian Rickson (director), Nicky Gillibrand (costume designer), Jeremy Herbert (designer), Young Vic, London.
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Escolme, B. (2020). Hamlet, Mourning and the Disappearing Costume: Inky Cloaks and Solemn Black. In: Shakespeare and Costume in Practice. Shakespeare in Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57149-8_2
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