0, 1827, but no Shakespeare
production was put on during his short and troubled administration.
Not quite two years later this strictly private undertaking became a
semi-public one under the immediate direction of J.K. Boecher, and at
the close of the season 1829-30, Boecher gave by way of epilogue to
the year, two performances including scenes from Holberg's _Melampe_,
Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, and Oehlenschlaeger's _Aladdin_. The Danish actor
Berg played Hamlet, but we have no further details of the performance.
We may be sure, however, that of the two translations available, Boye's
and Foersom's, the latter was used. _Hamlet_, or a part of it, was thus
given for the first time in Norway nearly seventeen years after Foersom
himself had brought it upon the stage in Denmark.[1]

[1. Blanc: _Christianias Theaters Historie_, p. 51.]

More than fourteen years were to elapse before the theater took
up Shakespeare in earnest. On July 28, 1844, the first complete
Shakespearean play was given. This was _Macbeth_ in Foersom's version
of Schiller's "bearbeitung," which we shall take up in our studies of
Shakespeare in Denmark.[2] No reviews of it are to be found in the
newspapers of the time, not even an announcement. This, however, does
not prove that the event was unnoticed, for the press of that day was
a naive one. Extensive reviews were unknown; the most that the public
expected was a notice.

[2. Blanc does not refer to this performance in his _Historie_.
But this and all other data of performances from 1844 to 1899 are
taken from his "Fortegnelse over alle dramatiske Arbeider, som
siden Kristiania Offentlige Theaters Aabning, den 30. Januar 1827,
har vaert opfort af dets Personale indtil 15 Juni 1899." The work
is unpublished. Ms 4to, No. 940 in the University Library,
Christiania.]

We are equally ignorant of the fate of _Othello_, performed the next
season, being given for the first time on January 3, 1845. Wulff's
Danish translation was used. Blanc says in his _Historie_[3] that
Desdemona and Iago were highly praised, but that the play as a whole
was greatly beyond the powers of the theater.

[3. See p. 94, note 1.]

Nearly eight years later, November 11, 1852, _Romeo and Juliet_ in
Foersom's translation received its Norwegian premiere. The acting
version used was that made for the Royal Theater in Copenhagen by A.E.
Boye in 1828.[4] _Christiania Posten_[5] reports a packed hous