Thursday, August 17, 2023

William Randolph Shakespeare in The Office

"A Benihana Christmas." By Jennifer Celotta. Perf. Steve Carell. Dir. Harold Ramis. The Office. Season 3, episode 10. NBC. 14 December 2006. Deleted Scene. DVD. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, 2018.

To get all the Shakespeare in The Office, you sometimes need to go to the deleted scenes.

In this deleted scene from "A Benihana Christmas," Michael Scott, stung by a recent breakup, calls on the Bard to help him express his emotions. But, as is usual, he becomes distracted by a side issue.

[Note: The language at the end of the clip may not be appropriate for all audiences.]


I'm not sure I can track down the precise direct quote that Michael is paraphrasing, though perhaps "Love doth be poison" would fit some of the ending speeches in Romeo and Juliet.

The other point to note is Michael's apparent animosity toward the anti-Stratfordians. For those who think Shakespeare wrote the works of Shakespeare, a fist pump may be in order. For those who don't, well, that's just Michael Scott, and his opinions are not to be trusted.

Links: The Episode at IMDB.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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