so a traveling shakespeare troupe came to my school today and performed romeo and juliet and it was just so good and
-the actor playing romeo was hella short and the actor playing benvolio was hella tall. at several points he just picked romeo up and moved him around the stage/out of his way.
-when the nurse delivered juliet’s letter they played it up like she was flirting with mercutio but mercutio just looked at her, wrapped his arm around benvolio, and more or less gave her an expression that said “i’m gay”
-when mercutio and benvolio were making fun of romeo for being Heterosexual™ (aka for loving juliet), benvolio picked him up and mercutio gave him a purple nurple
-juliet wore no shoes throughout the entire show except during the wedding when she wore these giant sparkly pink pumps with platform heels
-when mercutio gave the queen mab speech they had benvolio stand behind him and click castanets and go “ooooooooh” every time he dropped a dramatic line
-they had friar lawerance and the nurse say the prologue and the end lines and like…..that changed the impact of the lines and their character significantly. i’ve made a post or two about this before but i personally interpret romeo and juliet as a story about two kids too afraid to come to their parents with a problem because they’re afraid of repercussions. but what about the adults in their life that DID try to help with them with their problems, but still ended up failing them? let’s just say it hit hard and was very telling when the friar and the nurse choked out the last lines of the play while sobbing.
-whenever there was a fight scene, mercutio and benvolio were constantly trying to keep romeo away from the action, as if he was their younger brother who they didn’t want to get hurt in a brawl. during mercutio’s fight with tybalt, benvolio was shielding romeo with his body and physically picked him up and held him back at times. that really changed the dynamic of the three of them and made it even funnier when ben and merc were teasing romeo about his crush on juliet.
-romeo killed paris by hitting him on the head with a flashlight
-the apothecary that sold romeo poison was dressed up as your typical TV drug dealer and he acted like one as well
-while benvolio more or less disappears from the written play after romeo is banished, they kept him around this time and he followed romeo around to make sure he was okay but didn’t say anything. it was implied he didn’t talk because he was still grieving mercutio. (he also wasn’t there when romeo killed himself)
-i was watching it with a bunch of freshmen who hadn’t read the play before but when juliet killed herself nearly half the room started screaming because they were so shocked
honestly this cast was just so good. i’ve also seen them perform julius caesar set in a modern politician’s world and m*cbeth in a post-apocalyptic setting. i absolutely loved this production and i hope i can see more of their work soon
Romeo: I would die for you. Juliette: Okay, well, let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. THIS SUMMER (Begin upbeat/exciting background music) Benvolio: She’s in love with Romeo but her parents want her to marry Royalty. Mercutio: That’s where I come in. SHAKESPEARE’S GREATEST TRAGEDY Romeo (grinning in realization): A marriage of convenience. Juliette (with hopeful laughter in voice): This could actually work! NOW BECOMES Romeo (to Mercutio): What do you get out of it? Mercutio: My inheritance, my parents stop pushing girls on me, and I get to keep doing your cousin. Benvolio: He gets to keep…yeah. THE GREATEST COMEDY (Shot of the four of them running through the streets, hollering, laughing with masquerade masks on) (Shot of Romeo) Romeo: We just have to avoid getting caught for…ever. (Tybalt talking to Paris) Tybalt: I don’t think they’re actually in love. (Mercutio kissing Ben in an alley) (Romeo taking Juliette’s hand as she smiles) (Back to Tybalt and Paris) Tybalt: I’m going to get to the bottom of this. (Shot of Benvolio) Benvolio: They won’t let us be together to we made things so we can be. (Juliette in a courtyard, to Mercutio) Juliette: You need to be more careful, all four of our lives are at stake here. (Tybalt and Mercutio at the wedding’s dessert table) Tybalt: If I ever find out that you were unfaithful to my cousin I will kill you. Mercutio (music stop):………….cool, cool, good to know. THIS TIME (Another shot of a silly action sequence) ROMEO AND JULIETTE (More comedy) HAVE A PLAN (no music for finishing sequence) Benvolio (denying Merc a kiss in public) We can’t… Mercutio: (playfully) Is it because I’m married? Benvolio: I don’t care that you’re married!…You know, in any other situation, that would make me sound so terrible–
What’s In a Name JULY 2018 PG-13
(Spoiler: Tybalt ends up with Paris and helps guard their secret. Everyone lives)
oh! I have to tell you guys a great story one of my professors told me. So he has a friend who is involved in these Shakespeare outreach programs where they try to bring Shakespeare and live theatre to poor and underprivileged groups and teach them about English literature and performing arts and such. On one of their tours they stopped at a young offenders institute for women and they put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet for a group of 16-17 year old girls. It was all going really well and the girls were enjoying and laughing through the first half – because really, the first half is pretty much a comedy – but as the play went on, things started to get quiet. Real quiet. Then it got up to the suicide scene and mutterings broke out and all the girls were nudging each other and looking distressed, and as this teacher observed them, he realised – they didn’t know how the play ended. These girls had never been exposed to the story of Romeo and Juliet before, something which he thought was impossible given how ubiquitous it is in our culture. I mean, the prologue even gives the ending away, but of course it doesn’t specify exactly how the whole “take their life” thing goes down, so these poor girls had no idea what to expect and were sitting there clinging to hope that Romeo would maybe sit down for a damn minute instead of murdering Paris and chugging poison – but BAM he died and they all cried out – and then Juliet WOKE UP and they SCREAMED and by the end of the play they were so upset that a brawl nearly broke out, and that’s the story of how Shakespeare nearly started a riot at a juvenile detention centre
Apparently something similar happened during a production of Much Ado at Rikers Island because a bunch of inmates wanted to beat the shit out of Claudio, which is more than fair tbh
honestly Shakespeare would be so pleased to know his plays were nearly starting brawls centuries into the future
So. Today in class we assigned Macbeth roles to students to read. When I asked the class who wants to be Lady Macbeth, a young man raised his hand. I kind of stared at him like “Lady Macbeth,” and he nodded like “I know what I’m about ma’am.” So then the student who ended up as Macbeth raised his hand and said “HE’S THE ONE, HE’S MY WIFE!” So I said “yeah sure why not,” and the entire class period they were blowing kisses to each other and winking at each other, and every now and then Macbeth would say “I’m the luckiest man on Earth” and Lady Macbeth would put a hand to his chest, and be like “BABE!”.
I just stared at them, knowing that they CLEARLY have never read ‘Macbeth’ before, so… all this lovey dovey… I don’t know if I have the heart to tell them the truth.
Update:
Macbeth is absolutely willing to fucking throw down for Lady Macbeth. Has already threatened a wall, a desk, a few students, a textbook that was neither his nor Lady Macbeth’s, and me
Lady Macbeth is enjoying the attention and has begun to use this new connection to his advantage. I’m starting to suspect he’s read ahead in the play.
Macbeth is going to end up living in detention at this rate.
Macbeth has no idea that he is the tragedy of the story. Claims to be the hero of the play, fails to see the irony in this
Macbeth slowly scooted his desk across the classroom to hold hands with Lady Macbeth. He was not subtle.
Macbeth has proposed on several occasions. Lady Macbeth just laughs and says they’re already married.
Macbeth’s girlfriend is in the class with them and is “totally not jealous or anything just thinks this whole fucking play is a waste of time”
Lady Macbeth should probably be a theatre major at some point, he fucking rocked Act V scene I
Other teachers and staff are emailing me about the “lovely lords”. Lady Macbeth now refuses to answer to anything other than Lady Macbeth and is always very upset when people don’t call him by his proper title.
Is Mamma Mia! is a lost Shakespeare comedy/romance?
Evidence for:
It’s set on an idyllic Mediterranean island.
The plot revolves around a bunch of ridiculous misunderstandings.
The night of the bachelor and bachelorette parties functions as a “liminal space” that allows the characters to throw off the veneer of civilization and realize things about themselves.
A major theme is the return of a loved one who was thought to be lost forever (as in The Tempest and A Winter’s Tale).
The timeline is confusing. (Donna appears to have been in some 1960s/1970s-style band at the time of Sophie’s conception, even though Sophie must have been born in the late 1980s; similarly, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, nunneries are mentioned despite the ostensibly ancient Greek setting.)
There are songs.
Evidence against:
The dialogue is really bad.
There aren’t enough dick jokes.
All of the songs are by ABBA, a musical group that was not active in the early modern era.
Conclusion:
Shakespeare wrote a comedy/romance with the same plot and characters as Mamma Mia! (called The Three Gentleman Suitors); however, all manuscripts of this play were lost, and the only version that survives is an imperfect illicit transcription of the play by one of his rivals. Through the years, this transcribed version was further changed in accordance with popular tastes (losing the dick jokes in the Victorian Era) and eventually got adapted into an ABBA jukebox musical (mainly because it was in the public domain).
I want to write an alternative version of Romeo and Juliet where instead of being a little ponce and trying to work things out for himself, Romeo asks his smarter friends what to do about the whole thing and Benvolio and Mercutio come up with the world’s greatest plan:
Marriage of convenience between Juliet and Mercutio.
Think about it.
Juliet’s parents want her to marry into the Prince’s family. Mercutio is a good compromise between no marriage and Paris.
Mercutio probably won’t get his inheritance if he keeps being HELLA FUCKING GAY ALL OVER THE PLACE so a beard is only a benefit to him.
They would probably get along great rolling their eyes at how adorably stupid Romeo is.
Romeo and Benvolio could get a “bachelor pad” right next to Juliet and Mercutio’s house. Every night, Romeo and Mercutio high five as they hop the fence to go bang their one true love.
The second half of the play is just all of them trying to keep up the charade and being “THIS CLOSE” to getting caught all the time. But everything ends nicely because true love conquers all.
Everybody wins. Nobody dies.
THE SHAKESPERE AU I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED
DUDE DID YOU JUST FIX ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC PLAYS EVER CREATED?!
ONCE AGAIN EVERYTHING IS SOLVED BY THE QUEER LENS.
Baby It’s Cold Outside discourse is the same as Macbeth discourse.
Explain?
OK, so one of the big debates in Macbeth involves the scene in which Lady Macbeth talks Macbeth into killing King Duncan. People debate strenuously over whether it’s a scene of Lady M pressuring her reluctant husband into it, or whether it’s a scene of her sensing, due to their emotional intimacy, that this murder is something her husband secretly wants and has partially internally decided to do, and is arguing him into it in order to help him give himself permission to do it, in the same way that people see their loved ones wavering over the dessert menu and jump in with things like, “Go on, get the cheesecake, it’s your birthday!” Readers and scholars disagree strenuously about this – we even studied an incident in college in which two 18th century illustrators attended the same performance and happened to draw the scene the day after, producing two images that advanced opposite interpretations even though they’d seen the exact same actors do the exact same performance. It’s a big deal.
In the same way, the Baby, It’s Cold Outside discourse is about whether this is a song about sexual harassment, or whether it’s a woman singing about how she wishes she could spend the night with the guy she just had an excellent date with if only the neighbors wouldn’t talk, and him responding, “Stay, baby, it’s cold out! No one could expect you to go home in this!”
I really don’t know (baby stab his side) King Duncan’s a bro (baby cut through his hide)
I like him a lot (That decrepit old sot?) This plan ain’t so great (But what a king you’d make!)
The guards might worry (Darling, do it in a hurry!) His sons will rush the door (So knock them on the floor.)
I’m not such a knave (Bash his head with a stave) But I’d be a good king (Now you’re starting to think)
The dukes might all talk (But their chatter means naught) Say, love, what do you mean (You’d make such a king)
I simply must go (baby cut through his hide) There’s a war on you know (baby cut through his hide)
But what of his wife? (And what of his life?) It feels like bad luck (But that don’t mean much)
I’ve got a bad premonition (And I’ve got a mission) But that’s just superstition (My love, you’re a vision)
The witches said I’d rule (If they lied they were cruel) So baby let’s stab Stab his siiiiide!
myblog 