HAMLET         Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance – that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as ’twere the mirror up to Nature to show Virtue her feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.       (3.2.16-24)

Hamlet’s got plenty more to say about acting, it seems: be not too tame neither, there’s such a thing as being too subtle and understated, obviously, it’s got to be expressive—but let your own discretion be your tutor. Be judicious! Read the room! Draw on your own experience and instincts (as he says to the actual professional actor. Was this the sort of advice that Burbage himself gave, are these some of his own catch-phrases, or Shakespeare’s, or other members of the Chamberlain’s men?) Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, decorum, appropriateness, that’s what it’s about, making gesture and utterance all appear completely coherent, of a piece—but with this special observance—that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. It’s got to remain believable, natural, you know? You mustn’t go too far. (Says the man who has conversed with a ghost, who is—pretending?—to be mad.)

For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing—it loses sight of the whole rationale of acting itself, if you go over the top—the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as ’twere the mirror up to Nature. Right from the very origin of Dramatic Art, and still absolutely the case now, acting is meant to—what? reflect the world, life, behaviour, emotion as it is, exact in every detail? That’s what it suggests to a modern audience, accustomed to a mirror offering an accurate reflection, a mirror-image. For an early modern audience, however, there might be a further, even dominant, sense of the ideal, the exemplary, the mirror that (as art, literature was meant to do) shows the world as it could be, people as they might aspire to become, speaking better words, expressing more refined or intense feelings than they could otherwise imagine themselves doing. Mimesis, that’s what’s at stake here, the preoccupation of writers about art and literature at least since Aristotle, and it’s not necessarily about exact representation. You must show Virtue her feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure—the true nature of virtue, and the regrettable reality of scorn, the essence of the world as it is, people as they really are.

To a modern audience, it sounds as if Hamlet’s endorsing naturalism, realism—and that’s OK, it speaks to what is now valued as skilful acting. But there might be more to it, too.