Page:Frenzied Fiction.djvu/128

 Rh “‘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 to himself. 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 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,