Elizabethan Stagings of Hamlet: George Pierce Baker and William Poel

On 21 February 1900, William Poel staged the First Quarto Hamlet for a single performance in the Carpenters' Hall, London. On 5 and 6 April 1904, George Pierce Baker mounted a production of Hamlet with Johnston Forbes Robertson in Sanders Hall at Harvard University. The two productions shared a number of remarkable similarities. Both were attempts to stage the play in the Elizabethan manner; therefore, they departed from illusionistic traditions of the nineteenth century. Although there were distinct differences – for example, one had a cast of amateurs, one was professional; one was performed for the public, one for a university – each was an important step in the reformation of Elizabethan staging. The productions also reflected the pursuits of two men who, although they had similar ideas about Elizabethan drama, were motivated by different objectives.