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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 4.2.97: Top | Help

Or perhaps neither

There isn't a WHOLE lot of evidence that mime shows were a regular part of Elizabethan staging, mainly a few plays (like Hamlet) that use them in the play-within-play, thereby suggesting it was a convention the audience would recognize. But in Hamlet the dumb show is a prologue, encapsulating the plot of the real play in mime. I don't know of any suggestion that the mimes would be sharing the stage with the speaking actors during a performance.

Posted by Hamlet on April 11, 1997 at 10:01:31
 In Reply to "A mime is a terible thing to waste." posted by Ouroboros on April 11, 1997 at 09:02:27


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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 4.2.97: Top | Help