Who performed Ruth Morris Gray 's adaptation of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 's Sonnet 97: "How like a winter hath my absence been" best? ❄️🌨️

Grandview Heights High School , Ohio performs Ruth Morris Gray 's adaptation of #WILLIAMSHAKESPEARE 's Sonnet 97: "How like a winter hath my absence been" ❄️🌨️ 1/2https://t.co/52vlOVlJ47 pic.twitter.com/vGyXCWwueC

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) January 4, 2019

As the video subtitle indicates, I  incorrectly identified the name of the school in the poll. It should be "Centennial" not "Grandview Heights"




In case above link breaks:

Poor Toby Lush mixed up Tennyson & Byron during his job interview in "Fortunes of War"https://t.co/vtRBJf754Z pic.twitter.com/ikZvEJLaLk

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) January 5, 2019

Emma Thompson as Queen Elizabeth I

From the 2017 "Upstart Crow" Christmas Special Se2Ep13:

I'm not certain what accent Emma Thompson was going for here in her depiction of Queen Elizabeth I in #UpstartCrow - perhaps it was Swedish 🇸🇪 in homage to Greta Garbo 's #QueenChristina 👑 pic.twitter.com/3sRyssxn6l

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) August 14, 2018

Mrs Shakespeare: She's just so, you know, real! Just like one of us! She's the people's queen. I honestly think that if I knew her, we'd be friends. 

Shakespeare: Yes, I'm wondering on what evidence you're basing this fantastical analysis on the nature of class and power?

Mrs S: She works bloody hard.

Shakespeare: On being a tyrannical despot?

Mrs S: Well, I wouldn't want the job!

Shakespeare: What? The job of being incredibly rich and all powerful?

Mrs S: Every day she has to keep scowling. She can never let it drop! Whatever she's doing...opening pageants, cutting off heads, murdering the Irish, she's always with a scowl and you never hear her complain. 

Shakespeare: Because if she ever did complain, you'd be the first to hear about it, wouldn't you?  "Does the Queen ever complain?" "I don't know. Let's ask Anne Shakespeare. She lives in a cottage in Warwickshire. She'd know." 

Mrs. S: You can sneer. But I think she's wonderful. 

[Knocking. Audience stands] 

Robert Greene: Her Majesty. The Queen

Queen Elizabeth I: We live in a wounded and divided country.  Ever must we make window into men's souls and oftentimes kill them for what we find there.  I have known fear.  When a child I was dismissed and despised.  I was female. I was Protestant....and I was a....ginge!  Now I am queen and it is I who must decide who is to be despised. But it is Christmas and so I say "Good Will to All ... particularly ... gingers!"  How are we to proceed this even? 

Greene: Your Majesty, the poet Shakespeare is to present his gift prior to the performance of his play. Step forward, poet, with your gift.

QEI: Also,   if possible, a receipt of purchase.

Shakespeare: [Stammering] Your Majesty, I can't...It's not...

QEI: Have a care, Mr. Shakespeare.  If you do not bring a gift, Christmas custom dictates that you must give your head! Be it ever a most difficult shape to wrap. 

[ Mrs. S gives Shakespeare his gift to her of a box of poetry] 

Shakespeare: Your Majesty, I do have a gift! Here 

[ Greene offers eyeglasses to QEI which she knocks away]

[ QEI puts the paper to her face to read the poems]

QEI: Thank you Master Shakespeare. It is a beautiful gift.  Whomsoever you do love is a lucky woman, indeed.  

Shakespeare: Majesty, I love thee as do all thy subjects! 

QEI: Yes, I know. They have to, when they're not trying to kill me. But love contained within your verses is of a different order.  It speaks not of duty nor yet of fear.  It is the love felt by one person for just one other.  Given freely and unselfishly. Such a love is not for me.  For I am married to England. And tho all the nation be my spouse, I am ever the loneliest person in the realm. I thank you, sir, for this little window into love.  And now there is to be a play presented, is there not? 

Shakespeare: Yes, absolutely, your Majesty!  Mr. [Richard] Burbage and his men stand ready to present my sublime new piece, "Eighth Night"

QEI: It's strange, Mr. Greene, it's passing strange my gentlelady did tell she heard the players rehearsing your appalling old chestnut, Backache & Bogey.  

Greene: [Friar] Bacon and [Friar] Bungay, ma'am

QEI: Lucky for you the rumor was false.  Had I thought for one minute that you'd try to slip your bogey play into my yuletide schedule I would've had everyone involved beheaded! 

I am in no mood for comedy this even. Mr. Shakespeare, kindly present your "Eighth Night" another season. I will to my royal chamber there to be alone and read again these poems that speak eloquently of a love I'll never know.  

Mrs. S: See? I told you she was burdened down by duty and worry. It ain't no dawdling sky [?] being queen. 

QEI:  Ere I leave, poet, must I make thee a gift as is the custom.  What would you? Money? titles? Speak!

Shakespeare: Your Majesty, not riches or a title.  There sits in the tower, the poet, Kit Marlowe,   falsely accused of malingering when actually he had a tummy ache.  

QEI: I offer you all that men desire, and you would help a friend? 

Shakespeare: Well, it is Christmas, after all. 

QEI: Yes, Mr. Shakespeare,  it is Christmas.  [whispers] Mr. Marlowe shall be freed. Now I bid good night to all. I will [hie?] lie me to my lonely chamber there to lie back and think of England. 

Shakespeare: [to Greene] Give me my futting necklace now, you thieving bastible. [to Mrs S] Merry Christmas, darling.  

Mrs. S: Oh, Will! It's stunning! But I much rather have my poems!

Shakespeare: Don't worry.   There's plenty more where those came from.

Mrs. S: Well, husband, it's been a wonderful Christmas.

Shakespeare: Yes, it has. And now it be Twelfth Night. Tomorrow is Plow Monday and work begins again.

Mrs. S: "Twelfth Night" It's got a lovely ring to it, hasn't it? Bit better than "Eighth Night" if you want my opinion.

Shakespeare: There may be something in what you say. Easy to change since, cleverly, the title has literally nothing to do with the play.

Mrs. S: Shame you never got to see it performed.

Shakespeare: It'll keep.  Might shelve it for a few years, anyway.  Not sure the world is ready for a non-gender specific trans comedy, yet.


Mrs. S: It will be one day.  You're just a bit ahead of your time, that's all.  Happy Christmas. 

Shakespeare: Happy Christmas.  Peace on earth and good will to all men.

Mrs. S: And women

Shakespeare: Of course. And also those who, like my Viola, aren't exactly sure.

And, as an extra bonus, here is Madeline Kahn portraying one of Queen Elizabeth's nemeses, Mary Queen of Scots, on the Carol Burnett Show:

Why did Cate Blanchett put a bucket on her head to play Shakespeare?

Cate Blanchett @2:05 in Jimmy Kimmel interview:

"I played Miranda in "The Tempest", and I had to put my head into this rusty bucket, night after night."

A photo of Blanchett as Miranda, sans bucket, from Shakespeare Forever tumbler page:

I was unaware of the purportedly famous bucket head scene in "The Tempest", as compared to the balcony scene in "Romeo and Juliet":

the dagger scene in "MacBeth":

 and the fencing scene in "Hamlet":

I first thought this sounded like producers of Blanchett's production of "The Tempest" plagiarized Mystery Science Theater 3000 MST3K goof on "Hamlet" where the cast storyboarded a bucket head version of "Hamlet" @36:45:

"a bucket head 'Hamlet'. The buckets, of course, symbolizing modern man's faceless conformity."

However, doing the math, Blanchett said her production of "The Tempest" was 19 years ago and 2015-19=1996. The MST3K "Hamlet" goof, on the other hand, was produced in 1999:

So, as unlikely as it seems, somebody on MST3K staff, maybe one of the mild mannered robots:

probably Crow from "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"

scouted out obscure Shakespearean productions from around the world to help lend authenticity to their script. Bet Marvin Gaye family lawyers are already on the case:

Robin Thicke: "My lawyers were drunk and high when they allowed me to sue Marvin Gaye's estate." http://t.co/mWDlRHhMGA
— Popehat (@Popehat) September 16, 2014

Censored Shakespeare

Fellow tweeter just noticed that old films are being censored:

Censoring old Movies now? 1952 Cary Grant Room for One More removed "Under God" from Pledge of Allegiance WTF? #tcot #tgdn
— Cool Car Guy (@JoeSixpackSays) June 1, 2014

Not only are old films, but modern adaptations from 19th C novels are also censored. PBS censored the British made-for-TV film "Making of a Lady" by deleting scenes with naked bottoms, according to disappointed soft porn fans on the imdb chat board Of course, you can't make everybody happy, and there's not enough censorship of naked British bottoms according to satirical Stalinists on The People's Cube who complained about "Masterpiece Porno Theater".

However, ThisTV  not only is forbidden from showing naked bottoms, they can't even speak of their synonymous euphemisms.

With such stringent censorship rules, it seems odd ThisTV chose to air Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream" since the play's cast includes a character named Bottom who is puntastically turned into a donkey.


First off, saying H-E - Double Hockey Stick is OK

ACT I

SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

HERMIA

O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.

However, ThisTV censors actual cuss word for "darn it" euphemism. So, you can tell people where to go [Hades], just not how to get there.

ACT III

SCENE II. Another part of the wood.

PUCK

My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,

Even more absurdly, ThisTV not only censors word for "darn it" but also its homonym for female progenitor

ACT V

SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

Lion

"Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am

A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;"

Then ThisTV censors the synonym for donkey repeatedly over and over and over again....

ACT III

SCENE I. The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.

Puck:

My mistress with a monster is in love.

Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's nole I fixed on his head.....

When in that moment, so it came to pass,
Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.

ACT IV

SCENE I. The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA

BOTTOM

Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb
to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for
methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I
am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,
I must scratch.

ACT IV

SCENE I. The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA

TITANIA

My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.

ACT IV

SCENE I. The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA

BOTTOM

[Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will
answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream.

ACT V

SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

THESEUS

I wonder if the lion be to speak.

DEMETRIUS

No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.

ACT V

SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

THESEUS

With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and
prove an ass.

However, to get past censors, just use British slang term for posterior, "bum," instead of the donkey synonym, and All's Well that Ends Well:

ACT II

SCENE I. A wood near Athens.

PUCK

Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.

Finally, a drunk donkey, from the incredibly ribald, and certainly uncensored, Pharamaterial Phantasy blog post "GIF-ing the Woodcut; Or, Early Modern Party Animals" :

@BarackObama vs #vvs12, Shakespeare, US Constitution, & @USMC

@WilliamJBennett quoted Shakepeare' MacBeth in his introduction to Paul Ryan's Voters Value Summit speech:

I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds: I think withal
There would be hands uplifted in my right

Obama's apparent Islamic terrorist appeasement strategy may explain why he purportedly wanted to specifically eliminate the US Marine Corps, not only for purported technical reasons:

Worse yet, Mr. Gates has launched a major review of the Marines' mission. Although he conveyed in a speech in San Francisco last month an appreciation of the Corps and its unique “from the sea” war-fighting capability, the Gates review seems intended to challenge the need for amphibious-assault capability. Arguing that the proliferation of advanced anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, mines and other sophisticated weapons into the hands of even Third World nations is making endangered species of the vessels that form the backbone of “over-the-beach” war-fighting, Mr. Gates and his senior subordinates seem disposed - all other things being equal - to argue for scaling back, if not eliminating, such platforms.

but for the passive-aggressive, dhimmi reason of eliminating the one branch of service whose anthem specifically mentions the war against the Tripoli Muslim pirates.