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.)