SOURCE: Maher, Mary Z. “John Gielgud: The Glass of Fashion.” In Modern Hamlets and Their Soliloquies, pp. 1-18. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Maher describes in detail John Gielgud's delivery of Hamlet's seven soliloquies in a 1936-1937 production staged in New York and London. In a narrative supplemented by comments from the actor himself, she relates the effects of varying tempos, speech breaks, gestures, lighting, and stage business on Gielgud's performance of these speeches, stressing that he spoke them as if they were communications with himself rather than with the audience.

Because of his extensive and varied experience with Hamlet, John Gielgud owned the role of the prince in a way that no other twentieth-century actor could. As James Agate wrote of Gielgud's 1944 production, “Mr. Gielgud is now completely and authoritatively master of this tremendous part. He is, we feel, this generation's rightful...