SILENT SHAKSPEARE.
DEAR MR. EDITOR,
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,
I remain, always yours sincerely,
A DUMB WAITER.
OPERATIC NOTES.
Monday.—Faust and Foremost. Miss EAMES better even than she was last week. NED DE RESZKÉ not so diabolical a Mephistopheles as M. MAUREL.
NEDDY RESZKÉ
Not so goblineske,
and a stouter sort of demon, but of course a "bon diable."
Wednesday.—Roméo et Julietta. JACK and NED DE RESZKÉ Roméo and The Friar. Why the waltz alone, which ought to be on every organ besides Miss EAMES'S, but which, strange to say, isn't thoroughly popular, should be enough to make an Opera; but it's like the proportion of one swallow in the composition of a summer, and, however well sung, it does not do everything. It's a dull Opera.
Thursday.—Carmen again. House not immense. Persons "of note" chiefly on the stage. JULIA same as before; therefore refer to previous notice. Cab and carriage service after the theatres everywhere wants reforming altogether. We may not be worse off than in any other capital of Europe, but we ought to be far ahead of them.
Somebody or other complained of my writing "GLÜCK" instead of "GLUCK," He didn't like the two dots; one too many for the poor chap, already in his dotage, so to relieve him and soothe him, I'll write it "GLUCK," and then he can go to the proprietor of "DAVIDSON'S Libretto Books" and ask him to take the dotlets off the "Ü" in GLÜCK. I wonder if my strongly-spectacle'd fault-finder writes the name of HANDEL correctly? I dare say so correct a person never falls into any sort of error; or if he does, never admits it. I like it done down to dots, as "HÄNDEL," myself; it looks so uncommonly learned.
Saturday.—Tannhäuser. Full and appreciative house to welcome the rentrée of Madame ALBANI, who was simply perfection and the perfection of simplicity as the self-sacrificing heroine Elizabeth. From a certain Wagnerian-moral point of view, no better impersonator,—dramatically at least, if not operatically,—of the sensual Falstaffian Knight could be found than Signer PEROTTI; and, from every point of view, no finer representation of the Cyprian Venus than Mlle. SOFIA RAVOGLI. M. MAUREL was admirable in every way as the moral Wolframo, and Signor ABRAMOFF the gravest of Landgraves. The full title of this Opera should be Tannhäuser; or, The Story of a Bard who sang a questionable kind of Song in the highest Society, and what came of it.
Fine effect at end of First Act, when prancing steeds, with secondhand park-hack saddles, at quite half-a-crown an hour, are brought in, and, on a striking tableau of bold but impecunious warriors refusing to mount, the Curtain descends.
Then what pleasure to see Albani-Elizabeth receiving the guests in Act II., varying the courtesies with an affectionate embrace whenever a particular friend among the ladies-of-the-court-chorus came in view. My LORD CHAMBERLAIN, viewing the scene from his private box, must have picked up many a hint for Court etiquette from studying this remarkable scene. Then how familiar to us all is the arrangement of the bards all in a row, like our old friends the Christy Minstrels, Tannhäuser being the Tambourine, and Wolfram the Bones! Charming. Great success. Repeat it by all means.
