A Little Shakespeare On Mother's Day For La Parisienne

All right, maybe I simply have a perverse and wicked sense of humor. On this Mother's Day, I give you the famous "queen's closet" scene from "Hamlet."

Mother's Day in Elsinore must have been murder!

The volcanic confrontation between Hamlet and his mother occurs in Act 3, Scene 4 (text here), and the performance is by the Royal Shakespeare Company, with David Tennant as Hamlet and Penny Downie as Queen Gertrude.

Take a look at the opening salvo:

Queen Gertrude: Why, how now, Hamlet!

Hamlet: What's the matter now?

Queen Gertrude: Have you forgot me?

Hamlet: No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And -- would it were not so! -- you are my mother.

What follows is either scenery-chewing melodrama (if performed badly) or (if done well) sublimely modulated personal trauma of a once-loving relationship now destroyed, and I wouldn't give you a bad performance. Pay attention to how Tennant can turn on a dime where wildly conflicting emotions are involved and swing back and forth from an almost demonic energy to near-total prostration; it's an impressive performance indeed. Downie's Gertrude is fantastic too.

Part One:




Part Two: