would be idle to deny that he would
miss the finer shades of the poet's meaning. "The insolence of office,
and the spurns"--to take only one line--would tax the most elastic face.

So the soliloquy came into being. We moderns, however, see the absurdity
of it. In real life no one thinks aloud or in an empty room. The
up-to-date dramatist must at all costs avoid this hall-mark of the
old-fashioned play.

What, then, is to be done? If it be granted, first, that the thoughts of
a certain character should be known to the audience, and, secondly, that
soliloquy, or the habit of thinking aloud, is in opposition to modern
stage technique, how shall a soliloquy be avoided without damage to the
play?

Well, there are more ways than one; and now we come to what is meant by
stage-craft. Stage-craft is the art of getting over these difficulties,
and (if possible) getting over them in a showy manner, so that people
will say, "How remarkable his stage-craft is for so young a writer,"
when otherwise they mightn't have noticed it at all. Thus, in this play
we have been talking about, an easy way of avoiding _Hamlet's_ soliloquy
would be for _Ophelia_ to speak first.

_Oph._ What are you thinking about, my lord?

_Ham._ I am wondering whether to be or not to be, whether 'tis nobler in
the mind to suffer----

And so on, till you get to the end, when _Ophelia_ might say, "Ah, yes,"
or something non-committal of that sort. This would be an easy way of
doing it, but it would not be the best way, for the reason that it is
too easy to call attention to itself. What you want is to make it clear
that you are conveying _Hamlet's_ thoughts to the audience in rather a
clever manner.

That this can now be done we have to thank the well-known inventor of
the telephone. (I forget his name.) The telephone has revolutionised the
stage; with its aid you can convey anything you like across the
footlights. In the old badly-made play it was frequently necessary for
one of the characters to take the audience into his confidence. "Having
disposed of my uncle's body," he would say to the stout lady in the
third row of the stalls, "I now have leisure in which to search for the
will. But first to lock the door lest I should be interrupted by Harold
Wotnott." In the modern well-constructed play he simply rings up an
imaginary confederate and tells him what he is going to do. Could
anything be more natural?

Let us, to give an example of how this metho