Further, they were able to point to Shakespeare's stage direction: "Enter the ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth's place." Surely there could be no mistake, they argued, as to what the dramatist himself intended.

In subsequent performances the old system was restored, and in all modern representations of the tragedy the phantom has not failed to be visible to the spectators.

Nevertheless Banquo's ghost remains the _crux_ of stage managers.

How to get him on?
How to get him off?
How to make him look anything like a ghost--respectable, if not awful?
How to avoid that distressing titter generally audible among those of the spectators who cannot suppress their sense of the ludicrous even in one of Shakespeare's grandest scenes?
Upon a darkened stage a ghost, skilfully attired in vaporous draperies, may be made sufficiently impressive, as in "Hamlet," for instance.

The shade of the departed king, if tolerably treated, seldom provokes a smile, even from the most hardened and jocose of spectators.