I’m in a café where they have recently installed a TV, which I hate, yet cannot keep myself from looking at on occasion. I have caught myself compulsively watching episodes of Jeopardy, a documentary about Tanya Harding, various scenes from soap operas and today there appears to be a Gospel competition on. There is dancing, singing and a lot of clapping. It looks pretty fun, actually, like the most effervescent prayer possible.I know that Hamlet is not LITERALLY praying for Guildenstern to play the recorder but that is the origin of the phrase, I presume. That is the kind of pleading that is so strong that it goes beyond the person you’re asking – on up to God, who could help push the person into fulfilling your request.
Maybe if he added lights and sound and some of the cool dance moves they’ve got going on this gospel show, he’d get Guildenstern to actually play that pipe.
The Hamlet Project 