(The new KING sits behind his desk, drinking scotch whiskey he pours
from a crystal decanter.  His stepson, the PRINCE, has been called
before him, and sits sweating in the black leather chair upstage and to
the left, a chair just too high and too narrow to be comfortable, but
not enough of either to appear terribly uninviting.  It is the kind of
chair executives must order from special catalogs for such occasions.
Though he drinks, the new KING is wearing what would be called a sober
expression -- the look of a man burdened with power and responsibility.)
 
    KING: It's been four years.
 
  PRINCE: Yes.  I can count.  I've counted the days, in fact --
 
    KING: Do not tell me how many days it's been, Ham, because I don't
          want to know.  We're concerned about you, your mother and I.
          It's just not normal.  People die.  It's part of life.  The
          rest of us move on.  Come on, son --
 
  PRINCE: Don't call me son!  Never, ever call me that.  I am not your
          son.
 
    KING: Look, your father wouldn't like the way you're wasting your life
          now, those people you run around with -- and, frankly, it's
          hurting the business.
 
  PRINCE: Ah!  The true reason for this man-to-man chat!  Hamlet's
          morbidity is affecting the profit margin.  Two fucking
          column-inches in the Wall Street Journal -- I bet the
          switchboard was jammed with calls from stockholders...
 
    KING: ...two fucking column-inches on the FUCKING FRONT PAGE...
 
  PRINCE: ...stockholders screaming, "Doesn't that kid know how much
          he's costing us?  Who does he think he is, mourning his dead
          father?"
 
    KING: It was a goddam board meeting, son...
 
  PRINCE: I said NEVER call me --
 
    KING: ...a goddam board meeting, and you at the table, CRYING for
          God's sake, and making that awful wheezing sound, like a dog
          in pain or something, and screaming that shit about ghosts,
          about how your old man'd been murdered.  Look, the company
          doesn't need this right now.  Your mother doesn't need this.
          (Pause.)  We've been talking, she and I, about maybe getting
          you some help.
 
  PRINCE: Not Dr. Martin again.
 
    KING: No.  There's a place he told us about, though, in England.
          Just west of London.  It's not a hospital at all, just a place
          where stressed-out executives like you can relax.  (Pause.)
          It's for your own good, really.  Please, Ham, for your mother.