The long standing tradition that Shakespeare's plays are to be relegated to the bookshelf until a Margaret Webster or Maurice Evans sees fit to put them on the boards is being put to the acid test this week by Boston's Tributary Theatre group. Critics who ask whether the bard's works should be produced at all if they cannot be done to the king's taste are being answered, and all those who saw the Shakespeare Festival launched Tuesday night with Eliot Duvey's "Hamlet" know that the answer is yes.

The production is competent but not brilliant; it is the drama itself that carries the audience along, rather than memorable portrayals or spectacular staging. Indeed, the very modesty of the Tributary Theatre's undertaking has kept it out of the pitfalls of over-production that have characterized some star-studded performances.

Although he is too gaunt and spindle shacked a figure to impress as the perfect Hamlet, Eliot Duvey handles one of Shakespeare's most hazardous roles with confidence and finesse. His Hamlet is cool and calculating, and he convinces his audiences at the outset that his madness has method in it. Handing the difficult soliloquies like the veteran he is, Duvey is at his heat when alone on the stage, for he inclines to recite rather than act his lines.

Best of the supporting players is Kac Dirrane. Her Ophelia is delicate and genuinely pathetic. Edward Finnegan play Claudius imperiously but with perhaps a trifle too much of oratory in his delivery. He is nevertheless one of the most effective of the company.

Even the Tributary Theatre's capable production, however, cannot escape the inexperienced troupe's inevitable handicap of poor playing in the walk-on parts and even in several of the principals. Guards and messengers border on the amateurish, and Helen Stone's portrayal of Queen Gertrude adds nothing to the play but disappointment. A badly-spoken Rosencrantz also serves to brand the performance as experimental and Bostonian.

The Shakespearian Festival will continue tonight with "Julius Caesar" and will close tomorrow with a matinee performance of "As You Like It," and "Hamlet" in the evening. ps