Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

SOME THOUGHTS ON STILL STAR-CROSSED

• Obligate note that everyone is hot and I am having A Rough Time.  Especially Romeo and Rosaline.  Damn.  Relatedly, I’d die for Rosaline.  DAMN. Lovin’ that character interpretation and her friendship with Juliet.  I couldn’t give less of a damn about Benvolio/Rosaline, but give me all of Escalus cutting out his own heart to save Verona and Rosaline hating herself for not being able to hate him.  The scene of them in the church was some good shit.

• This was EXACTLY the overwrought historically inaccurate Shakespeare nonsense I hoped it would be, frankly.  Sweeping beautiful visuals, sudden closeups for theatrical one-liners, slightly confused plotline timing, and The Drama™.  Good stuff.

• I don’t generally care for versions of Romeo and Juliet where the love story is played straight (Shakespeare wrote it as a tongue-in-cheek tragedy, a lot of the narrative makes more sense with that perspective, and the love-at-first-sight angle is kind of desperately overplayed and therefore I Do Not Care) but I’m willing to roll with it because I knew what I was getting into.  And like they do a decent job with it, it’s very tragic, Juliet is good, I like her, Romeo’s death is nicely done.  Kinda annoyed that Juliet poisons herself rather than stabbing herself because I like the tragedy of “I will kiss thy lips//Haply some poison yet doth hang on them.”

• That being said, I think it was a narratively good move to add some additional weight to the Montague/Capulet feud.  Like, on the one hand, yes, folks are being murdered in your streets, that is Not Good, but also let’s…have a solid reason for the Prince to care, seeing as that’s the whole plot of this show.  And it being Italy in the 16^th century, concerns about a power grab by the winning family are pretty legit.  (I’ve watched a lot of Borgias lately.)

• ANTHONY.  STEWART. HEAD.  AS LORD CAPULET.  Aw man y’all the part of me that really enjoyed the first two and a half seasons or so of Merlin (another show I have Opinions on) as a terrible romp through somewhat bastardized Arthuriana is real excited right now.

• Glad to see Paris is a dick.  Very pleased.

• The all out riotous brawl at the funeral was honestly the top thing on my wish list for this show and I feel intensely gratified to have gotten it.

• The line “Escalus, Verona is burning” was my fucking shit to be honest.  Like, damn, son, Isabella is Athena, the clear-eyed goddess of wisdom and war, and I feel like the world deserves to see her with a sword in her hand.

• Here is my #1 Complaint: they seem to have accidentally switched Benvolio and Mercutio’s personalities.  This is not to say that Benvolio is necessarily the voice of reason in the play (it’s a play of Bad Choices), but Mercutio is 100% the “I am drunk at 10 AM,” Do It For The Vine friend.  I got to the scene where Mercutio dies before I realized that the other guy wasn’t Mercutio, and I was solely tipped off by the fact that I knew Mercutio died.  I get it that they clearly wanted some sort of bad boy thing to be happening here, but I’m so salty about this.  Like, why WOULDN’T you want Benvolio to be loyal and honest and grief-stricken and desperate to do right by his best friends’ deaths for this thoughtless crusade?  Romeo, the hopeless romantic, and Mercutio, the laughing rogue, both dead from this hopeless feud, and Benvolio, true and dependable as good steel, the last one left alive, who will see it mended if it kills him but who can’t quite forget his friends’ voices enough to marry a woman he doesn’t love.  Like, what part of that DOESN’T sound like good shit.

• ….I mean…personal headcanon that he’s drowning himself in alcohol and misery because Mercutio doesn’t love him, and that he doesn’t care what happens to him afterward because Mercutio is dead.  Like, that’s the only way I can reconcile the dude in the show and the play character. But whatever that’s just me.

Ultimate conclusion: 10/10 on The Drama™, but it ain’t exactly Sense8 for structure or narrative cohesion.  Will I show my Shakespeare nerd parents?  Jury’s out.  Will I continue watching it?  HELL YES.

oberonnymerosmartell:

bisexualzuko:

“they can say whatever the hell they want I don’t care I’ll say ‘fuck you’”

“did you just flip the bird at us?”

“I did flip the bird, yeah”

“but did you flip it at US?”

“yo bruh if this starts a fight how easily can I get out of trouble”

“not very”

“So like I flipped the bird but it TOTALLY wasn’t at you”

let’s just appreciate that this is a conversation that actually literally happens in one of the greatest plays in the english language

(Source: pitbullmabari, via dukeofbookingham)

lushthemagicdragon:

ladykaty:

zombb-8:

crystallizedtwilight:

nanyoky:

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.

(via dyinghistoric)

lushthemagicdragon:

ladykaty:

zombb-8:

crystallizedtwilight:

nanyoky:

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.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

Anonymous asked: *curtsies* Mighty duke, I've been taught at school that the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet is actually a sonnet, but you recently assured that this is incorrect. Could you please explain why? I'm starting to doubt everything my teacher says

dukeofbookingham:

*Curtsies* First things first: There is no such thing as ‘the balcony scene.’ Calling it ‘the balcony scene’ is a misnomer because there’s no actual balcony involved. ‘Balcony’ wasn’t even really used as a word until about the 1610s; Romeo and Juliet was written in the 1590s. Romeo says “What light through yonder window breaks?” She’s at a window. Not on a fuckin’ balcony. That’s people conflating what we have of the text and what we *think* we know of early modern theatre architecture and creating a balcony where no balcony exists in the world of the play. So that’s the first problem. Second problem: Romeo and Juliet do speak a sonnet together but it’s in the scene at the Capulets’ ball when they first meet, not in the incorrectly-termed ‘balcony’ scene. (It’s Act I, Scene 5 and it starts with If I profane with my unworthiest hand if you’re looking for it.) Yes, there is a sonnet. No, there is no balcony. And there definitely isn’t a sonnet on a balcony at any point.

copperbadge:

nanyoky:

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.

This has probably been said on this post before but it makes a reasonable amount of literary sense as well.

A lot of Shakespeare’s works, comedy in particular but also relatively serious plays like The Merchant Of Venice, were based in the tropes of Italian commedia, which is eventually where we get French sex farces from as well. 

Add in a servant who facilitates the nightly transfer and wants to get laid with one of the housemaids, some jokes between characters about people thinking Romeo and Benvolio are fucking all night long, Romeo in drag once or twice, and either a lecherous elderly neighbor or Juliet’s father always hanging around, and you’ve basically got the plot of a commedia performance. Especially funny at the time would have been dressing Romeo in drag (say, to pretend to be her lady in waiting when her dad almost catches him in some other man’s marital bed in the middle of the day) while Juliet was already being played by a boy actor in drag, and having Romeo pull it off so well that he gets mistaken for her. 

But yeah, R&J as a door-slammin’ sex comedy, I’d watch it. 

Commedia! *jazz hands*

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

mats-bloody-hat:

nanyoky:

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.

i am here for this

I demand movie tickets.

(via adelindschade)