Tag: shakespeare

royal-boyfriend:

The best production of Romeo and Juliet I’ve ever seen

Mercutio, for some god foresaken reason, was wearing a pink feather boa the entire time. No one mentioned it, no one even looked weirdly at him. Everyone else was wearing like period appropriate clothes but then there was Mercutio with his boa either just around his neck, or around his waist like a belt. During his Queen Mab scene it was tied around his head like a bandana. Every time he came on stage it was somewhere new. The best part, oh the best part of it all, was that in this production they had Benvolio appear in a couple scenes after his death. He didn’t speak of course cause he didn’t have any lines, but he stood in the back. And guess what he had in his hands. A pink. Feather. Boa.

jumpingjacktrash:

belinsky:

kyraneko:

thepurposeofplaying:

theprettygoodgatsby:

my favorite part of hamlet is at the beginning when they see the ghost of hamlet sr for the first time

and the guards are like “Horatio, you go talk to it! You went to college!”

and Horatio is like “Yeah! I did go to college! I will go talk to the ghost!”

like. where did horatio go to college. did he go to ghost college

YES, ACTUALLY YES HE FUCKING DID BC

(a) EVERY COLLEGE THEN WAS GHOST COLLEGE bc ghosts were widely believed to be Real™ n thus scholars learnt abt them. moreover, as everybody knows, ghosts only communicate in Latin; Latin is the scholastic language. Horatio is a scholar, thus both knows abt ghosts and knows Latin, so it is very reasonable to assume he will b able to ask this one what up (as obviously sth must b up 4 it 2b wandering around, why else wld it b here, gawd, this is like. the most basic of basic-level shit)

(B) WITTENBERG WHERE HORATIO STUDIES WAS LIKE. T H E MOST SPOOPY OF GHOST COLLEGES bc they were alllllll about theology n the supernatural n shit so SUPPOSING HORATIO WILL KNO HIS SHIT ABT GHOSTS IS IN FACT A THOROUGHLY SENSIBLE ASSUMPTION

this has been said before but i am fucking adding it again bc it HACKS ME TF OFF when ppl reblog the post w/o commentary as if OP jsut fucking checkmated Shakespeare when in fact all they managed to do was fail at the most basic historical contextualisation of this scene n make a fcuking fool of emselves lmao

this feels less like a “checkmate, Shakespeare” moment than a “fuck was this dude on, this shit’s surreal” moment

personally I kinda love the complete effect of “thing that made sense when originally written appears hilarious/fascinating/weird as balls to people who don’t have that context, and then context is made known to them and it’s like a whole new level of supercool” 

it’s like the circle of life for shakespeare plays. “lol have the college guy talk to the ghost because as a college guy he has the necessary experience” transmutes into “every college was ghost college in shakespeare’s time” and the whole effect is awesome.

just gonna add a bunch of things here bc i love this moment in the play actually and it’s really interesting!  because shakespeare was p smart.

  • marcellus and bernardo have seen the ghost before but they go to horatio with this information before they go to, say, anyone who actually fucking lives there
  • given hamlet’s reaction to horatio showing up in the next scene we can be pretty sure that no one knew horatio was even coming to elsinore (unless maybe claudius and gertrude invited him without telling hamlet and the soldiers got to him before they could work on him like ros&guil, but a) that’s a stretch and b) horatio’s relationship with the family outside of hamlet is seriously up for debate and a big question to answer for that role)
  • so like… how did m&b even find horatio to tell him about the ghost and why was it him they told?  clearly they want to get validation before going to someone Important but the circumstances of this arrangement are RULL WEIRD
  • (the ‘you went to ghost college’ line isn’t just about horatio being able to speak to the ghost bc he’s been to ghost college, it’s about having a SCHOLAR validate what they saw, so when they go to someone with power to do something about it they can push horatio to the front and say ‘the learned rich guy thinks there’s a ghost too please actually listen to us’)
  • when they DO go to tell hamlet it’s basically just a bff reunion + btw ghost so clearly they did some strategizing after this scene as to how best to broach that topic (it’s horatio that says ‘it’ll probably speak to hamlet’ but if it had been someone different would they have thought ‘it’ll probably speak to gertrude’? that they go to hamlet with it is BECAUSE horatio is there so like… again i come back to how did they find him)
  • PEOPLE P MUCH ALWAYS CUT THESE LINES BUT BOTH THE SOLDIERS AND HORATIO ASSUME THE GHOST IS THERE BECAUSE OF THE WAR WITH NORWAY, NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING TO DO WITH HIS DEATH– it would’ve been a HELLA PLOT TWIST when he started talking about murder in 1.5
  • wittenberg was also famously associated with dr. faustus and martin luther, which the audience at the time would have known, which is part of why it was the most spoopy
  • we don’t know horatio went to wittenberg at this point.  like we the reader know, we the people putting on this play know, but we the audience don’t know.  it’s actually a cool ‘aha’ moment in the next scene when claudius brings up wittenberg and you’re like AH YES, GHOST COLLEGE 
  • we also have no idea what horatio and hamlet’s relationship is like so when horatio shows up in the next scene and hamlet goes from ‘i hate everyone’ to ‘OMG UR HEEEEEEEEEERE’ with this dude we only know as ‘new in town’ and ‘intellectual’ we know that hamlet will believe him about the ghost and that (because we’ve already been over how he’s level headed and smart) he’ll be there to help us out with our lead who’s not quite all there which is a p cool setup by billy
  • why is the ghost just like wandering the battlements?  it’s pretty heavily implied he won’t speak to anyone but hamlet so why doesn’t he just go to him?  the haunting rules for the ghost are all over the place and again that’s like a serious conversation you have to have with the actor, what the heck is he doing here
  • TBH THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THIS SCENE, THAT A LOT OF LIKE SUPER ESTABLISHED SCHOLARS AND DIRECTORS STRAIGHT UP FORGET:  this scene is here at least partially to establish that the ghost is objectively there.  there is some sort of fragment of spirit wandering the battlements that looks like the dead king and it wants something.  it only TALKS to hamlet, and when it shows up later gertrude can’t see it, but the first thing we learn in this play is THERE IS A GHOST. shakespeare takes great care to make sure we know we can trust our eyes with it.  our ears perhaps not, but the play is not from hamlet’s pov. we start with marcellus and bernardo, and grounded loyal horatio, saying ‘what the fuck what is this ghost doing here’.  the mystical bit isn’t what’s up for debate
  • also ‘thou’rt a scholar, speak to it horatio’ is fucking hilarious and no one ever plays it as a joke
  • like why isn’t this ALWAYS staged as marcellus and bernardo hiding behind horatio and pushing him at the ghost and him going ?!!!?!?!?!?!?  i just got here and you have swords what the fuck is wrong with you

basically it’s like a couple of small town cops going “oh thank fuck agent mulder is here”

acaele-blog:

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

okay, brief thesis statement: as you like it is the play where you most directly see shakespeare trying to cope with marlowe’s death.

i’ll explain that in more depth, but first, a little bit about marlowe!

christopher (kit) marlowe was not only another playwright in the period—he began writing before shakespeare, and he basically created elizabethan theater as we know it. he was lower class (the son of a shoemaker), and had by some miracle managed to get scholarships to posh schools, starting with the king’s school in canterbury and continuing up through cambridge, where he studied classics. and by “studied classics” i mean “became the first person to translate ovid’s deeply filthy sex poems into english,” because that’s the sort of person marlowe was. he subsequently quit academia to go into theater, which was, as my prof put it, basically the equivalent of announcing today that you want to put aside your ivy league education for a career in porn.

let me give you a sense of the kind of person kit was

  • we know a lot about his life from his arrest record
  • he might have been a spy???
  • by which i mean he ~mysteriously came into money~ while at cambridge (we know because we have records of the moment when he started buying drinks for everyone. kit.)
  • he might have been an atheist???
  • whether or not he was, he definitely was fond of telling people (in 16th century england!!!) that jesus was gay
  • i’m not kidding
  • he’d walk up to people and be like: “so, jesus christ was totally fucking his apostles. thoughts?”
  • IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
  • so it is probably not surprising that he died violently at a young age (*quiet sobs*)
  • he got stabbed in the eye in a bar fight at age 29
  • but wait! even his death is mysterious!!!
  • twelve days before his murder, a warrant was issued for his arrest on vague charges of blasphemy. ten days before, he was called up in front of the privy council, but they didn’t meet for some reason. there were rumors that he was going to implicate some pretty high-up nobles in a SECRET RING OF ATHEISTS.
  • there’s more, but basically, there was SHADY SHIT going on, and in the coroner’s report, it says refers to the fight as being over “the reckoning,” which could either be SUPER OMINOUS or be about who would pay the check.

which brings me to as you like it! given the coroner’s report, the lines quoted in that post i reblogged read a little differently:

When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a
man’s good wit seconded with the forward child
Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a
great reckoning in a little room. (III.iii.9-12)

ha

hahaa

hahahajsdkh;aseljdlk;fgjehoirjasfd;lk

(and this comes in a scene where the characters discuss poets/poetry and whether to be “poetical” is to be honest, and how truth can be communicated through fiction aaaaAAAAAAAAAAHHH)

*muffled weeping*

see, shakespeare and marlowe were really, really close. they had a friendly rivalry and were having all the sex. their plays constantly reference/one-up each other. marlowe wrote the jew of malta, so shakespeare wrote the merchant of venice. marlowe wrote edward ii, so shakespeare wrote richard ii. and so on and so forth. in each other they each found an intellectual equal, someone who could not only keep up, but challenge them—something pretty rare for both of them.

and then, out of the blue, marlowe dies.

a lot happens out of the blue in as you like it. the plot moves forward with these lightning-strike revelations (suddenly, they’re in love! suddenly, a lion! suddenly, the duke goes to live in a monastery!). it’s comic, but also disorienting, and the characters struggle to keep their balance as their world shifts around them.

the through-line of love at first sight, which constitutes several of those sudden, shocking events, isn’t subtle, and is most clearly pointed out by phoebe when she says:

Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’ (III.v.82-83)

want to know why that bolded line is in quotes? because it is a quote.

from marlowe.

specifically, from marlowe’s poem hero and leander.

so, shakespeare bases the main plot conceit of ayli on a quote taken directly from marlowe (ABOUT LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT I’M GOING TO DIE) and then proceeds in the same play to reference the “great reckoning” and to write, in a speech by jacques: “the scholar’s melancholy, which is / emulation” (IV.i.10-11).

THE SCHOLAR’S MELANCHOLY, WHICH IS EMULATION

THE SCHOLAR’S MELANCHOLY, WHICH IS EMULATION

*lies down on the ground*

*tries not to cry*

*cries a lot*

okay i’m losing the ability to talk about this coherently but basically shakespeare was devastated by marlowe’s death and as you like it is his tribute to kit and it destroys me

Source: acaele-blog