Hamlet (Excerpt)

Alternative title: Ophelia’s Mad Scene
Synopsis: Ellen Terry reciting Ophelia’s speech from Act IV v 5. beginning ‘Dear maid, kind sister...". The speech is included in GREAT HISTORICAL SHAKESPEARE RECORDINGS issued by Naxos (Catalogued separately).
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Audio
Recording date: 28 Feb 1911

Cast

Ellen Terry

General: Recorded in New York City. In the autumn of 1883, during Henry Irving’s fist engagement in New York, Ellen Terry played a round of characters as his leading lady. Of her Ophelia, Mr William Winter of the Tribune wrote "Ophelia is an image, or personification of innocent, delirious, feminine youth and beauty, and she passes before us in the two stages of sanity and delirium. The embodiment is fully within Miss Terry’s reach, and is one of the few unmistakably perfect creations with which dramatic art has illumined literature and adorned the stage."

SHAKESPEARE