Author: Stephen Leacock
Category: Humorous
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II. WITH OUR GREATEST ACTOR
That is to say, with Any One of our Sixteen Greatest Actors
It was within the privacy of his own library that we obtained--need wesay with infinite difficulty--our interview with the Great Actor. He wassitting in a deep arm-chair, so buried in his own thoughts that hewas oblivious of our approach. On his knee before him lay a cabinetphotograph of himself. His eyes seemed to be peering into it, as ifseeking to fathom its unfathomable mystery. We had time to note that abeautiful carbon photogravure of himself stood on a table at his elbow,while a magnificent half-tone pastel of himself was suspended on astring from the ceiling. It was only when we had seated ourself in achair and taken out our notebook that the Great Actor looked up.
"An interview?" he said, and we noted with pain the weariness in histone. "Another interview!"
We bowed.
"Publicity!" he murmured rather to himself than to us. "Publicity! Whymust one always be forced into publicity?"
It was not our intention, we explained apologetically, to publish or toprint a single word--
"Eh, what?" exclaimed the Great Actor. "Not print it? Not publish it?Then what in--"
Not, we explained, without his consent.
"Ah," he murmured wearily, "my consent. Yes, yes, I must give it. Theworld demands it. Print, publish anything you like. I am indifferent topraise, careless of fame. Posterity will judge me. But," he added morebriskly, "let me see a proof of it in time to make any changes I mightcare to."
We bowed our assent.
"And now," we began, "may we be permitted to ask a few questions aboutyour art? And first, in which branch of the drama do you consider thatyour genius chiefly lies, in tragedy or in comedy?"
"In both," said the Great Actor.
"You excel then," we continued, "in neither the one nor the other?"
"Not at all," he answered, "I excel in each of them."
"Excuse us," we said, "we haven't made our meaning quite clear. What wemeant to say is, stated very simply, that you do not consider yourselfbetter in either of them than in the other?"
"Not at all," said the Actor, as he put out his arm with that splendidgesture that we have known and admired for years, at the same timethrowing back his leonine head so that his leonine hair fell back fromhis leonine forehead. "Not at all. I do better in both of them. Mygenius demands both tragedy and comedy at the same time."
"Ah," we said, as a light broke in upon us, "then that, we presume, isthe reason why you are about to appear in Shakespeare?"
The Great Actor frowned.
"I would rather put it," he said, "that Shakespeare is about to appearin me."
"Of course, of course," we murmured, ashamed of our own stupidity.
"I appear," went on the Great Actor, "in _Hamlet_. I expect to present,I may say, an entirely new Hamlet."
"A new Hamlet!" we exclaimed, fascinated. "A new Hamlet! Is such a thingpossible?"
"Entirely," said the Great Actor, throwing his leonine head forwardagain. "I have devoted years of study to the part. The whole conceptionof the part of Hamlet has been wrong."
We sat stunned.
"All actors hitherto," continued the Great Actor, "or rather, I shouldsay, all so-called actors--I mean all those who tried to act beforeme--have been entirely mistaken in their presentation. They havepresented Hamlet as dressed in black velvet."
"Yes, yes," we interjected, "in black velvet, yes!"
"Very good. The thing is absurd," continued the Great Actor, as hereached down two or three heavy volumes from the shelf beside him. "Haveyou ever studied the Elizabethan era?"
"The which?" we asked modestly.
"The Elizabethan era?"
We were silent.
"Or the pre-Shakespearean tragedy?"
We hung our head.
"If you had, you would know that a Hamlet in black velvet is perfectlyridiculous. In Shakespeare's day--as I could prove in a moment if youhad the intelligence to understand it--there was no such thing as blackvelvet. It didn't exist."
"And how then," we asked, intrigued, puzzled and yet delighted, "do_you_ present Hamlet?"
"In _brown_ velvet," said the Great Actor.
"Great Heavens," we exclaimed, "this is a revolution."
"It is. But that is only one part of my conception. The main thing willbe my presentation of what I may call the psychology of Hamlet."
"The psychology!" we said.
"Yes," resumed the Great Actor, "the psychology. To make Hamletunderstood, I want to show him as a man bowed down by a great burden. Heis overwhelmed with Weltschmerz. He carries in him the whole weight ofthe Zeitgeist; in fact, everlasting negation lies on him--"
"You mean," we said, trying to speak as cheerfully as we could, "thatthings are a little bit too much for him."
"His will," went on the Great Actor, disregarding our interruption, "isparalysed. He seeks to move in one direction and is hurled in another.One moment he sinks into the abyss. The next, he rises above the clouds.His feet seek the ground, but find only the air--"
"Wonderful," we said, "but will you not need a good deal of machinery?"
"Machinery!" exclaimed the Great Actor, with a leonine laugh. "Themachinery of _thought_, the mechanism of power, of magnetism--"
"Ah," we said, "electricity."
"Not at all," said the Great Actor. "You fail to understand. It is alldone by my rendering. Take, for example, the famous soliloquy on death.You know it?"
"'To be or not to be,'" we began.
"Stop," said the Great Actor. "Now observe. It is a soliloquy.Precisely. That is the key to it. It is something that Hamlet _says tohimself_. Not a _word of it_, in my interpretation, is actually spoken.All is done in absolute, unbroken silence."
"How on earth," we began, "can you do that?"
"Entirely and solely _with my face_."
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 bedone.
"I come before the audience _so_," he went on, "andsoliloquize--thus--follow my face, please--"
As the Great Actor spoke, he threw himself into a characteristic posewith folded arms, while gust after gust of emotion, of expression, ofalternate hope, doubt and despair, swept--we might say chased themselvesacross his features.
"Wonderful!" we gasped.
"Shakespeare's lines," said the Great Actor, as his face subsided to itshabitual calm, "are not necessary; not, at least, with my acting. Thelines, indeed, are mere stage directions, nothing more. I leave themout. This happens again and again in the play. Take, for instance, thefamiliar scene where Hamlet holds the skull in his hand: Shakespearehere suggests the words 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well--'"
"Yes, yes!" we interrupted, in spite of ourself, "'a fellow of infinitejest--'"
"Your intonation is awful," said the Actor. "But listen. In myinterpretation I use no words at all. I merely carry the skull quietlyin my hand, very slowly, across the stage. There I lean against a pillarat the side, with the skull in the palm of my hand, and look at it insilence."
"Wonderful!" we said.
"I then cross over to the right of the stage, very impressively, andseat myself on a plain wooden bench, and remain for some time, lookingat the skull."
"Marvellous!"
"I then pass to the back of the stage and lie down on my stomach, stillholding the skull before my eyes. After holding this posture for sometime, I crawl slowly forward, portraying by the movement of my legs andstomach the whole sad history of Yorick. Finally I turn my back on theaudience, still holding the skull, and convey through the spasmodicmovements of my back Hamlet's passionate grief at the loss of hisfriend."
"Why!" we exclaimed, beside ourself with excitement, "this is not merelya revolution, it is a revelation."
"Call it both," said the Great Actor.
"The meaning of it is," we went on, "that you practically don't needShakespeare at all."
"Exa
ctly, I do not. I could do better without him. Shakespeare crampsme. What I really mean to convey is not Shakespeare, but somethinggreater, larger--how shall I express it--bigger." The Great Actor pausedand we waited, our pencil poised in the air. Then he murmured, as hiseyes lifted in an expression of something like rapture. "In fact--ME."
He remained thus, motionless, without moving. We slipped gently to ourhands and knees and crawled quietly to the door, and so down the stairs,our notebook in our teeth.