The book begins by pointing out that the first Hamlet on film was Sarah Bernhardt. This role that has for so long had such a grip on public consciousness as the measure of an actor has for almost as long enticed the actress determined to demonstrate that her talent will not submit to limits. The part has always had a distinctive yet underacknowledged relationship with the female performer, partly due to the commonly held conviction that there are “feminine” aspects to Hamlet that may prove key to understanding his character, but also engendered by its status as the supreme acting challenge. Also significant is the long-held belief that Hamlet is the ultimate humanist role, with whom every human being can identify, almost demanding a test of whether this includes women. There have been far too many female Hamlets for it to be an oddity, or even much of a novelty, and so it is most appropriate that it be treated instead as it is here, as a cultural phenomenon worthy of being recorded, and likely to give insights into social attitudes to a woman's place in art.

Tony Howard speaks in his preface of beginning this project with intentions of producing an encyclopedic work, but finding that so many women have played the role of the Prince of Denmark that such a task would be unfeasible. He narrows his aim to the more modest attempt to “sketch the territory, and retrieve the stories of just a few remarkable performances” (ix). He may be underestimating himself: in spite of this adjustment in attitude, it is hard to believe that Howard has left anything out in his history of women playing Hamlet. The depth and breadth of his research are extraordinary, not only in its stretch from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, but in drawing in everything from Eugène Delacroix's use of Marguerite Pierret as his model for his series of lithographs of the prince, to the movie adaptation of Simone de Beauvoir's novel All Men Are Mortal, along with a huge array of more straightforward examples of Hamlets that differed from other professional productions only in that an actress was cast in the title role. Delightfully, he even looks at accounts of fictitious performances, and I was charmed to see the illustrious ancestor of Dora and Nora Chance in Angela Carter's novel Wise Children featured, along with their own parodic efforts.

There is more driving this than simple cataloging. Howard is interested in both what goes into a performance and what comes out. He looks carefully at what made these women want to perform the role and provides a counterpoint of quotes from some who have not aspired to it (such as Fiona Shaw, who reportedly turned down the part because she didn’t have any issues with her father she was interested in exploring). He analyzes not only the actors’ interpretations of the role, but how the dynamics of the rehearsal process operated, and how those who saw the performances interpreted what they were seeing. All aspects are considered: how the projects were conceived and by whom, what motivated them, how they were developed and pursued, as well as how they were promoted and then received. He appraises what preconceptions critics brought to the theater with them and assesses to what degree they were prepared to take a performance on its own terms. In his case studies, he considers at what point in the actresses’ careers they undertook the task, what it may have done to the shape of their careers, and what influence it might have had on others. Impressively international in its scope, there is substantial space devoted to performances not in English, and to all kinds of adaptations. Discussions of productions in countries such as Ireland and Turkey take in the political relationships of these cultures with Shakespeare. When individual productions are examined, the descriptions provide a satisfying level of detail.

Howard describes his work as an “attempt to uncover partially forgotten histories” (316), but this book is much more than that. It charts changes in attitudes to women as artists, shifts in awareness of what bodies represent in the cultural moment, and how that representation operates in the transaction between performer and audience. Howard is not a passive observer and recorder, but a sociopolitical analyst. Certainly Women as Hamlet is an interesting and meticulous history, full of surprises, but its value lies equally in its engagement with what has been special about the role's challenge to the female performer, and what their performances have given to the understanding of Hamlet.