Before we enter the world of Richard II, let us begin with the tricks of the trade and rehearse the most celebrated of all Shakespeare's rehearsals. “Suite the action to the word, the word to the action” – Hamlet's illustrious antimetabole decks one of the play's rare moments of sincerity which the Prince shares with a bunch of vagabonds and, perhaps, we with Shakespeare. The locus classicus of Elizabethan metatheatricality hints briefly at the practicalities of contemporary stage acting, and soon unfolds into the patently intertextual dictum on the universal purpose of playing. Given the apparent emphasis on the quality and interpretation of performance, one is likely to pass over the wittingly non-reciprocal nature of Hamlet's tutoring. Thus, the action suited to the word refers primarily to the actor's expressiveness, whereas the other action denotes also broadly understood circumstances, ranging from the pre-existent plot to the immediate context of performance which is here constituted by the quandary of Claudius's unproven guilt. In other words, Hamlet not only instructs the players how to make the best of their lines within the fictional framework of The Murder of Gonzago, but also how to use these lines to accommodate his “action” and fasten the grip on the king's conscience. The latter aspect can be best understood the day before, when Hamlet meets the First Player: “You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?,” inquires the Prince. Understandably enough, the answer is “Ay, my lord” (II.2.528–30).