The Actors Are Come Hither

Elsinore's rugged Kronborg Castle, setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet, still makes traveling players as welcome as its most famed tenant once did. Since 1937, Denmark has been inviting foreign troupers to re-enact the tragedy right at the scene of the crimes. (Among its title-role guests: Sir Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.) Next week, at the latest revival, Elsinore's visiting players will have traveled for the first time all the way from the U.S.

The Americans, flown to Denmark by the U.S. Air Force, were dispatched by Virginia's Barter Theater on its first international junket. From its base in Abingdon, the Barter is far & away the most active professional repertory company touring the U.S. With a $10,000 annual grant from Virginia, the Barter is also the country's first state-subsidized theater.

Blessed by the U.S. State Department, the trip was inspired and partly financed by wealthy Blevins Davis, patron of the ballet and board member of the American National Theater and Academy. The 26-member troupe, with ANTA Executive Secretary Robert Breen playing Hamlet, was bolstered with some veteran Broadway talent: Aline MacMahon as the Queen, Walter Abel as the King, Clarence Derwent as Polonius. But the production, geared for ten outdoor performances in the castle's great courtyard, was born in Abingdon.

The Barter, busy last week planning a summer season with the largest Equity company outside Manhattan, is still run by Robert Porterfield. Porterfield founded the group in 1932 with 21 down & out actors, $1 in cash and a policy of barter at the box office. The first season's receipts were 10% cash and 90% pigs, game and produce; it wound up with a profit of $4.30 and two barrels of jelly.

Today the theater still has a large kitchen and a farm, but 90% of the admissions come in silver and greenbacks. Says Porterfield: "If another depression comes along, we'll just go back to taking beans and 'taters for admissions."

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