SOURCE: "Hamlet, Princess of Denmark," in Around Theatres, Alfred A. Knopf, 1930, pp. 46-9.

In the following essay, originally published in 1899, Beerbohm finds Bernhardt's Hamlet to be a comic spectacle and takes issue with the French prose translation of the play.

I cannot, on my heart, take Sarah's Hamlet seriously. I cannot even imagine any one capable of more than a hollow pretence at taking it seriously. However, the truly great are apt, in matters concerning themselves, to lose that sense of fitness which is usually called sense of humour, and I did not notice that Sarah was once hindered in her performance by any irresistible desire to burst out laughing. Her solemnity was politely fostered by the Adelphi audience. From first to last no one smiled. If any one had so far relaxed himself as to smile, he would have been bound to laugh. One laugh in that...