The great success that has attended the production of _L'Enfant Prodigue_
at the Prince of Wales's Theatre has encouraged me to make a suggestion in
the cause of English Art. Why not SHAKSPEARE in dumb show? The Bard himself
introduced it in "The Play Scene." Allow me to suggest it thus:--
SCENE--_A more remote part of the Platform in Elsinore Castle. Enter_
GHOST; _then_ HAMLET.
_Hamlet_ (_in dumb show_). "Where wilt thou lead me? Speak!" (_In dumb
show._) "I'll go no further."
_Ghost, by kissing his hand towards the horizon, shows that his hour is
almost come, when he is bound to render himself to sulphurous and
tormenting flames. The latter part of his description is composed of his
shrinking about the stage, as if suffering from intense heat._
_Hamlet buries his face in his hands, and sobs pitifully, expressing_
"Alas, poor Ghost!"
_Ghost repudiates compassion by turning up his nose, and throwing forward
his hands; and then, by pointing from his mouth to his ear, demands_
HAMLET'S _serious attention._
_Hamlet touches his own lips, points to_ GHOST, _slaps his heart, and bows,
intimating that the_ GHOST _is to_ "Speak!" _and he is_ "bound to hear."
_Ghost explains that he is his father's spirit by stroking_ HAMLET'S _face,
and then his own, and then shrinks about the stage to weird music,
descriptive of his prison-house. He concludes by appealing to_ HAMLET'S
_love for him by pressing his clasped hands to his own heart, and then
pointing towards the left-hand side of his son._
_Hamlet jerks his hands passionately upwards, as if saying_, "Oh Heaven!"
_Ghost then asks for revenge by touching his dagger, and pointing towards
the sky. He acts the murder in the garden, showing the serpent who stung
him by gliding about the stage on his chest, like the boneless man. He
shows his murderer to be of his own blood by walking up and down as
himself, and then in the same way, but with a slight limp, as if he were
his brother._
_Hamlet might here exhibit_ "_Zadkiel's Almanack" as_ "prophetic," _and
slap the sole of his shoe for_ "soul;" _for_ "my Uncle" _it would be
sufficient to produce a pawnbroker's ticket_:--"Oh my prophetic soul! Mine
Uncle!"
_Then the Ghost in great detail acts the murder in the orchard, imitating
the apples and the singing birds, the setting sun, &c., &c. He shows the
composition of the poison after its plucking from a bush, and its arrival
in the laboratory. He represents the actual pouring of the poison in his
ear. He hints too (by suggesting the action of the bell-ringer) that he was
never really mourned, and concludes a most spirited Ballet d'Action by a
rapid sketch of the paling of the ineffectual fires of the glow-worm. As he
leaves to the music of_ "Then you'll Remember Me," HAMLET _imitates
cockcrow, which brings the entertainment to an appropriate termination._
Surely this would be an improvement upon the conventional reading? In this
case where speech is silvern, silence would be golden.
Trusting some Manager will take the matter up,