In 1895
Joseph Haworth played a long engagement in
the standard drama, acting the leading
roles in Hamlet, Richard III,
Richelieu, The Bells,
Rosedale, and Rinaldo. The
venue for this ambitious season was the
recently opened Castle Square Theatre in
Boston. These productions received
national attention and were widely
reviewed and reported on in the New York
press.
A handbill for the week
of January 21, 1895 announced Hamlet
and Rosedale. It unabashedly called
Haworth "America’s Greatest Hamlet" and
"America’s Greatest Actor." Still going
strong on March 4, 1895, The Castle Square
announced Rinaldo for Monday and
Thursday evenings, Richelieu for
Tuesday and Saturday evenings, Rosedale
for Wednesday matinee and Friday evening,
Hamlet for Wednesday evening and
Saturday matinee, billing Joe has
"Boston’s Favorite Actor."
Joe added Richard III
to repertory at the Castle Square to
critical and popular approval, but at a
terrible cost. One night in the duel
between Richard and Richmond, the fight
was in its final stages with Richard
succumbing to an avalanche of blows
showered upon his sword. At this point,
Joe felt a sudden agony in his thumb,
followed by numbness in his arm as his
gauntlet filled with blood. Fainting with
pain, Joe managed to finish the fight and
the play, whereupon it was discovered that
the top of his thumb had been amputated
down to the bone. The wound was dressed in
a hospital emergency room, and Haworth
played Richard again the very next night.
The one original play
performed in the repertory was Rinaldo.
It told the story of a young
village doctor in the time of Dante, who
abandoned his betrothed and traveled to
Florence, becoming rich and marrying into
aristocracy, only to suffer the remorse of
a biting conscience. Joe had commissioned
Ernest Lacy to write the blank verse play
as a star vehicle. Rinaldo was well
received in Boston and reported on
favorably in the February 26, 1895 New
York Times, but was not kept in Haworth’s
repertory.
The Boston Herald, one
of the most conservative journals in
America at the time, devoted two columns
to Joe’s Hamlet at the Castle
Square:
"His Hamlet is one of
remarkable value and worth. This much may
be stated with absolute certainty. None of
the actors who have attempted the role
during the past dozen years, before or
after Edwin Booth passed away, have at all
equaled Mr. Haworth in pleasing
effectiveness or in the great essentials
of the role. This new Hamlet is not only
one of extraordinary merit, but it is
builded on lines which will make it
popular with the masses. While the memory
of Edwin Booth’s acting in this role is
fresh in the public mind, no new Hamlet
will be accepted without question. But Mr.
Haworth’s Hamlet more nearly approaches
the American ideal than any other which
has been presented. It has qualities which
should win for it a permanent place in
affectionate public regard. The great
merit of this Hamlet lies in the fact that
Mr. Haworth has a clear, intelligent
conception of the character, and that he
presents it consistently and with such
clearness of demonstration and
illustration, that it is easily understood
by the average auditor of fair
intelligence. There is a
straightforwardness and directness in the
actor’s method, as the character unfolds
and develops which challenges admiration.
"His conception of
the character follows closely that made
familiar by Edwin Booth, and much of the
admirable business of the play used by
that distinguished actor is adopted by Mr.
Haworth, but there is no attempt to copy
the illustrious dead. Indeed, Mr. Haworth
does not look unlike Edwin Booth in the
robes of the melancholy Dane, and his
personality fits the character admirably.
He makes at all times a pleasing,
impressive, dignified, graceful prince,
and fortunate graces of person aid him
materially in conquering his audiences at
the outset. To the scholarly,
intellectual, spiritual, philosophic and
poetic qualities of Hamlet, Mr. Haworth
gave beautiful expression. He never for a
moment lost his firm grip upon the
character; never lost sight of his ideal,
nor forgot the greater meaning and
significance of the ideal which
Shakespeare created."
