"
Good heavens! Was it possible? We looked again, this time
very closely, at the Great Actor's face. We realized with
a thrill that it might be done.
"I come before the audience _so_," he went on, "and
soliloquize--thus--follow my face, please--"
As the Great Actor spoke, he threw himself into a
characteristic pose with folded arms, while gust after
gust of emotion, of expression, of alternate hope, doubt
and despair, swept--we might say chased themselves across
his features.
"Wonderful!" we gasped.
"Shakespeare's lines," said the Great Actor, as his face
subsided to its habitual calm, "are not necessary; not,
at least, with my acting. The lines, indeed, are mere
stage directions, nothing more. I leave them out. This
happens again and again in the play. Take, for instance,
the familiar scene where Hamlet holds the skull in his
hand: Shakespeare here suggests the words 'Alas, poor
Yorick! I knew him well--'"
"Yes, yes!" we interrupted, in spite of ourself, "'a
fellow of infinite jest--'"
"Your intonation is awful," said the Actor. "But listen.
In my interpretation I use no words at all. I merely
carry the skull quietly in my hand, very slowly, across
the stage.
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