SCENE: Elsinore—a platform before the castle (on an improvised stage).
Inky darkness. Shade of Hamlet (solus).
Shade of Hamlet: Oh, did you see him, did you see the knave,
The spindle-shanked, low-browed, and cock-eyed
Clerk to an attorney, play at Hamlet,
Dream-souled Hamlet, wearing an eyeglass?
Oh, it was horrible.
(Enter Shade of Laertes.)
Shade of Laertes: What's the matter with Hamlet?
S. of H.: He's not all right.
No, by the fame of Shakespeare, he's all wrong.
A certain convocation of talented amateurs
Are e'en at him.
Your amateur is your only emperor for talent;
There's not a genius in the universe
Who will essay as much.
S. of L.: Or, who will imitate nature so abominably.
Your head is level, Ham., and I—even I,
Laertes, suffered at the hands of one
Whose fiery hair, parted in the middle
Like a cranberry pie, caused me to believe
That some of nature's journeymen had made a man,
And not made him well, he imitated nature
So abominably.
S. of H.: Ha' the fair Ophelia!
(Enter Shade of Ophelia.)
S. of O.: Yes, my lord, thine own Ophelia,
Come back to earth with heaviness o' grief
Thy madness ne'er begot, for I have seen
The efforts of a lisping, smirking maid,
As graceful as a bean-pole, and as lean.
Attempt to paint the sorrow of my heart.
Oh, I would get me to a nunnery.
S of H.: Let me Ophelyour pulse.
Mad—quite mad; and all because
A creature whom these mortals call a Miss,
Quite properly, as her efforts are amiss,
Would fain portray thee. Soft you, now!
O fair Ophelia. Nymph in thine orisons
Be all her sins remembered.
Why let the stricken deer go weep,
The untrained amateur play?
All those that watch must surely weep.
So wise men stay away.
(Flickering blue lights and curtain.)