Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Hamlet was not an overall success with critics for many reasons. One of those reasons was that his portrayal of Hamlet was reminiscent of an older time period in which Hamlet was more solemn and depressed (This was the characterization James E. Murdoch was attempting to get away from in 1845). 

Tree's Hamlet has been described as "a Hamlet positively paralyzed by his own inclination to view each problem facing him from many perspectives. His Hamlet was not mad, but rather overcome with the weight of his own tortured, solipsistic thoughts" (Woods 180).