Shakespeare - Blog Posts
I kindof want to see all of these. I’ve seen enough Shakespeare and adaptations of Shakespeare that they sound ridiculous but also like they could be really good if handled well.
Six Shakespeare adaptations
1. Titus and Ronicus. Somewhat like Titus Andronicus, but with the addition of Titus’s wisecracking brother, Ronicus Andronicus. Known for that one wild slapstick scene with the pie at the end.
2. The Complete The’s of Shakespeare. Consists of every ‘the’ that Shakespeare wrote, delivered in an appropriate manner for each instance. Has the advantage of being much easier for a million monkeys to type. Is therefore much kinder to monkeys than the alternative. Please consider the monkeys.
3. Henry V in space. We begin the play awaiting the arrival of the French Ambassadors. They are coming from France, which is seven light-years away and several hundred metres under the newly-risen Atlantic. It may be a long wait.
4. A Twelfth Night’s Hamlet. In which Hamlet is shipwrecked on the way to England and has to dress up as a woman dressing up as a man to in order to evade detection whilst avenging his father’s murder, but comedy strikes when he vacillates a little too long in an oddly-mislocated enchanted forest. Everyone ends up both completely heterosexually married and also dead.
5. The Scottish Play, a theatre-safe version of Macbeth which avoids bad luck by never mentioning the title character’s name or indeed anyone else’s name either. Explores issues of identity and confusion. Usually there is at least one murder, but nobody is quite sure of who by who. In fact, because nobody is sure who is king, or indeed what the succession actually is, it naturally follows that the only way to ensure kingship is to kill everyone.
6. Juliet and Cressida. It may have been that Cressida found some way to take advantage of Shakespeare’s not-always-consistent time periods to perform an audacious act of time travel. We are still not entirely sure. In any case we tracked down Juliet and Cressida to ask them what the plot had been, since they were both notably still alive in the present day. But Juliet made a rude gesture at us and slammed the door. It may be that only the protagonists know the plot.
Me when people say Tezcatlipoca is the evil brother while Quetzalcoatl is pure good
BOTH OF THEM DID BAD THINGS AND BOTH OF THEM DID BENEFICIAL THINGS IT TAKES SO MUCH FROM THEM TO LABEL THEMNGOOD OR BAD
Me everytime I see a badly writen retelling that makes unecessery changes to the source matterial that add nothing and rather take away from it, and it's clear that the writter both hates and doas not understands the source matterial, or when I see a bad take that misinterprets the source matterial:
Everytime when someone potrays Demeter a bad, overbearing mother.
Or when Persephone potrayd as a cute Kawaii pink aesthetic UwU girl (thanks Rachel, we are suffering the conseqvences of you fethis comic), and Hades is potrayd as a lonely nice guy who never did anything wrong.
Or when Medusa is potrayd/talked about as a sad, lonely, tragic girlboss and held as a symbol for women's empowerment and protection who wanted revenge, when she did not do anything to help women.
Or when Perseus is potrayd as a villian, or when Andromeda potrayd as an unhappy wife.
Or when people blatently say that Romeo and Juliet is not a tragedy, ignoring that the fect that the hate between two families lead to multiple people's death, and how the only time when they realised that they unfound hatered was bad was when they children were already dead.
Or when I see people claiming that Thor was a bad husbend to Sif.
Or when the gods get declawd. This is for any mythology.
Or when Hera redused to nothing but a bitchy wife.
Whenever that happands. I think of this song.
I will probably ad more to the post when more of this comes to my mind. Feel free to add more.
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Cease not thine belief;
Hold fast that noble feeling.
Lo! The streets are lit, and peopled.
RIP Helena, you would have loved Tumblr 😔
I currently have a copy of A Midsummer Nights Dream on my Nexus 7 to prove this.
For everyone sharing that “swag came from the 1960s” comment.
rereading act 5 of measure for measure to see how i could hypothetically make it a tragedy and i completely forgot isabella cries "And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!" I can literally not recall any other time in a shakespeare work where a single word has been successively repeated four times like that god wow. The escalation the desperation.. to me there is no way to do that line without turning out to the audience and screaming/begging THEM for justice, a call to action from a heartbroken woman grieving a brother who betrayed her
Some favourite staging moments in productions of Shakespeare plays:
Clarence actually getting drowned in a barrel of wine on stage in Richard III; it was a small barrel, they stuck his head into it as he struggled, pulled him out for an instant as he gasped for air and screamed, his head was wet and sopping, his face all red
Macbeth clutching his empty hands to hold an imaginary child, casting a clawed shadow on the wall
Ophelia ripping out hanks of her hair to give to people during her ‘flowers’ scene (obviously fake hair in real life)
Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing hiding from Claudio, Leonato and Don Pedro, taking a swig from a can of beer that happened to be full of cigarette butts and spit-taking it all over Don Pedro and Leonato
who then awkwardly pretend to check if it’s raining
Angelo in Measure for Measure taking off a bloody cilice belt from around his thigh while saying ‘Blood, thou art blood’
Also a really good bit where Angelo shows up in a two way mirror later on when the Duke’s speaking to himself and cursing him; the Duke turns to point at the mirror and there’s Angelo, in the chain of office, pointing back, accusing the Duke as much as the Duke does to him
The moment in Julius Caesar where Brutus asks his servant Strato - who’s been sitting with his back to the audience and wearing a hat with a wide brim - to help him commit suicide; Strato stands while taking off his hat to reveal that he’s played by Caesar’s actor
(a collective gasp went around the theatre; really lent a whole new meaning to ‘Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will’)
After a frantic chase scene in The Comedy of Errors which ends with all the cast collapsed across the stage in exhaustion and the scenery itself falling to bits…a pair of underpants falls from the ceiling, and Dromio of Ephesus (who’d tried in vain to retrieve them at the start of the play) crawls over several other characters, seizes them and screams in triumph
are we memorizing mercutio’s lines for shits and giggles? yussir
This is so relatable what the fuck.
yeah no offense to confucius or anything but if i was about to embark on a journey of revenge i would simply not dig two graves
W. Heath Robinson’s illustrations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (1914).
Yes Macbeth murdered a bunch of ppl, took over a kingdom, and inspired anarchy BUT his wife double dared him and questioned his masculinity so really who's to blame
to read *dark academic tastes*
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt - Absolutely anything by Oscar Wilde - Harry Potter - preferably all in one sitting (idgaf what anyone says its da) - Shakespeare, absolute classic because.. shakespeare - Allegorical Novels (like AnimAl faRm) - so you can look smart while discussing politics and microcosms @mohkomx - Edgar Allan Poe (dark poetry is hauntingly enticing) - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (not da,just my own recommendation) - Hugo Caberet (again my own recommendation - Brian Selznick is a genius) - anything by Brian Selznick (just for good measure) i hope you liked this post! Amimi
currently reading King Lear by Shakespeare, and i must say i find it so hard to read plays. i know people love them, but they seem so plain to me? they’re nice to listen to though
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
Voltaire
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
William Shakespeare
The course of true love never did run smooth.
William Shakespeare
To be honest this was his best look
Amore non è amore se muta quando scopre un mutamento
o tende a svanire quando l'altro s'allontana.
Oh no!
Amore è un faro sempre fisso che sovrasta la tempesta e non vacilla mai.
Amore non muta in poche ore o settimane,
ma impavido resiste al giorno estremo del giudizio;
se questo è errore e mi sarà provato
io non ho mai scritto e nessuno ha mai amato.
-William Shakespeare
Meglio che il loro odio tolga la mia vita, e non che la morte tardi senza il tuo amore.
Shakespeare
Todo mundo é capaz de dominar uma dor, exceto quem a sente.
William Shakespeare
#art #myart #traditionalart #shakespeare #midsummernightsdream #nickbottom
Hamlet but during all of his soliloquies he rolls around like Draco Malfoy in A Very Potter Musical
excuse me could you direct me to the gayest productions of hamlet? please & thank you
I am delighted by this message, bless you.
Hands down, it’s Hamlet at Elsinore (starring Christopher Plummer & Michael Caine as wee 20-somethings). You wouldn’t expect a 1964 production to be the gayest one ever, but it goes beyond plausible deniability to a true, actor-confirmed queer interpretation of Hamlet and Horatio. And just to sweeten the deal, it’s an amazing production that flows super well, has a GREAT Ophelia and Laertes, and has no gross Oedipus interpretations. By far my favorite filmed version of Hamlet.
[It’s *cough* totally not right here on Youtube]
Second place for level of gay is even older (1921) and German: the first filmed production of Hamlet, with Asta Nielsen playing the leading role. As it takes the premise that Hamlet’s birth sex was female but he was raised as male so the kingdom would have a prince, his clear attraction to and flirtation with his male companions was acceptable to its contemporary audience. But like. It’s a dude. Who’s clearly not into Ophelia and way into his guy friends. It’s pretty gay.
It’s really really great too, with gorgeous cinematography but is a German silent film so fair warning.
[It’s also totally not right here.]
(There are other very gay Hamlets I could have included. Maxine Peake’s is fab, and the RSC’s has some vibes. But these are the two that are also actual amazing performances, so they are always my #1 recs for queer Hamlet.)
i know it’s midnight but i just saw a production of rnj that was So Good just everything but for now i want to talk specifically about tybalt and mercutio:
- so the play was set somewhere in the middle between 1590 and 1990 and it was Great listen: mercutio had a snap back, skinny jeans, and a doublet, tybalt had khakis and a red button up and a Good Jacket and it was just?? wow the costumes were amazing
- “make it a word and a blow” mercutio blew a kiss ?? and tybalt Blushed ? confirmed ok i was in the 2nd row Trust Me.
- the build up to the fight. and then mercutio seeing the fight as a game, tybalt all riled up by that. the montagues were trying to stop mercutio and the capulets were egging tybalt on, the contrast was!! and the fight choreography!! wow!
- speaking of fight choreography. during one sword-cross mercutio actually, honest to god, kissed tybalt right on the mouth just gonna leave that there
- as mercutio is dying it really looks like a joke at first; like it could really be just a scratch. and tybalt saw that, started smiling because “haha well he’s just joking he’ll laugh in a minute and have been fine all along”
- but then, mercutio starts to lose his step, his confidence. and everyone sees it’s serious. and tybalt’s smile fell and i can’t describe how horrified he looked. it actually broke my heart. and tybalt fell to his knees and just Stared at mercutio dying, even while gregory tried to get him to run, he just wouldn’t move.
- and then mercutio was dead and Hell if it didn’t kill me too. the actor had this aura about him the whole play that made mercutio just feel untouchable. even when he was fighting he made it look like a game, like he just Couldn’t Get Hurt. and when in the end he does get hurt, for me it was just like reading the play for the first time. it was like a new death and it wrenched my heart and i fucking loved it
- tybalt still on his knees in shock and grief while romeo ran at him and grabbed him and started screaming at him oh my God. i know I’ve said about 18 things broke my heart already but this broke my Heart.
i just wanted to share this with you all im sure ill talk about this phenomenal show more but for now this is all my heart can take.
The Tempest
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."
Act 1
Congrats daughter, you're finally old enough to hear the family drama. I need to go enact my revenge now; but here's a boyfriend I'll pretend to disapprove of as a consolation gift.
Act 2
Your friendly neighborhood island spirit does a lot of putting people to sleep, then waking them up again, but this time, to stop a murder. Caliban tastes liquor for the first time and is convinced butler buddy is God.
Act 3
Not knowing her father's watching, Miranda and Ferdinand promise to marry each other. Ariel conjures a banquet to lure the old royals and confront them, then makes it vanish before they can eat.
Act 4
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and or little lives are rounded with a sleep.”
Prospero: Jk, Jk, daughter. I do, in fact, approve of boyfriend.
Act 5
Everyone reunites, all is forgiven, and Ariel and Caliban are freed. Prospero quits magic and travels with everyone for Miranda and Ferdinand's upcoming wedding; in addition to him becoming Duke again.
Disability Visibility
Thank you to @auteurdelabre for our beautiful coloring book and @romanarose for the Disability Visibility Prompt, if anyone would like to participate. At least for me, the anchor point I connect with on this front revolves around chronic illness. My father has a mental illness, and I'm going through another round of doctor visits and procedures that I don't want. But somehow I feel like Ezra gets it. I haven't written for this character yet because his syntax is so Shakespearean, so I thought I'd pair it with one of my favorite, perhaps applicable, sonnets for anyone who needs it...
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Let us continue to look on Love, which is boundless.
@w0lfinsheepscl0thing Yes we can! It's a drawing from my website!
How many literary cats can you recognise?