#joseph booth

[jamescanningauthor]

Tudor Hall, Booth home

[quietparanoiac]

— I don't know the way. — Of course you do. You've just come that way.

Gentleman Jack (2019–), 2x01

[winteringinrome]

I heard you like Thank You James, but how do you feel about Just Doing his Best Joseph?

[incorrectgentlemanjackquotes]

Anne: Making my way downtown, walking fast

Joseph: Ms. Lister, Marian is looking for you-

Anne: walking faster

[bicapopart]

Like a Neoclassicism oil painting. Already a lot said about cinematography of Gentleman Jack, but this is freaking brilliant!

[the-goofball]

Must be my driving.

[jamescanningauthor]

Did you actually go see the JWB play, and if so how was it?

Oh my goodness, I forgot to post about that!!! Thank you so much for reminding me!! Of course I did, I got the tickets after all! Couldn't go to the family cemetery because it was closed that day, though (it is almost always closed, which is absurd), but I got to walk around Baltimore and enjoy my garbanzo beans in an arboretum!

11 people mistook me for a theater employee, despite being on my phone and wearing headphones. This was probably because I was young and had gone alone, whereas most people at the theater at that time of day were old or with family. I was well-dressed, but in a professional, rather than an old-money, way. It was only $20 because of a student discount/making live theater accessible to students thing. Which more people should know about/use!

That show was fucking incredible. 

Pros: 

1: They addressed the Booth brats being ethnically Jewish, specifically Sephardic from their father & his father!! He may have been half Ashkenazi too, as we don't know shit about his mother! No one else ever addresses this!!! & how Booth wasn't the original family name! Hence why it's a million times easier to find records on their Mother's side.

2: They addressed Asia's views and agreement with Wilkes

3: They used a ton of direct quotes from Wilkes. It's from his perspective as an unreliable narrator

4: They kind of discussed the conspirators & how Wilkes knew them

5: Portrayal of Wilkes' fraught relationship with Edwin, tho taken to a greater extreme. Wilkes did actually love him & clearly, Ned loved him despite it all. Wilkes wouldn't really shoot him in a disagreement; he cared for him a lot.

6: A LOT of direct quotes from Wilkes & of course, I recognized all of them.

7: Amazing representation of Edwin & Wilkes' complicated relationships to their father & their father's complexity as a person!

8: Discussion of Richard Booth (grandfather) at all!!! He is so often overlooked!

9: Wilkes being kinda horny for Lord Byron when discussing Byron's influences on his parents and their beliefs. Mentioning Byron's bisexuality (thus alluding to his father/himself being possibly bisexual).

10: Wilkes was very handsy and touchy with the other guy working for the theater, and touched his face, leaned on him a lot, which he did not seem to mind. Extremely true to life and in character.

CONS:

1: Barely any mention of other siblings, such as Joe, who notably agreed with Wilkes in life.

2: Really weirdly horny for the Romani woman who Asia says in her memoir told Wilkes' fortune alarmingly accurately in terms of overarching motifs. May have been an invention or false memory on Asia's part, but the play has Wilkes as the unreliable narrator have that grown woman be absurdly horny for the 12-year-old version of him??? It's super uncomfortable and in practice looks like she's grooming/trying to groom Wilkes...

3: using a fucking slur for the Romani woman. Like in dialogue, it makes sense because of who the Booths were & other language they use, and that word being used in Asia's memoir, but the actual script/playbill/captions, etc, using that slur?? To avoid confusion, I guess? Repugnant.

4: Not enough Davey!!!! I know it's about Wilkes and his family more than the assassination & conspiracy, but :( I need him idc

5: lack of allusion to Edwin & Adam Badeau being rllllly gay or Davey and Wilkes (there is. Evidence.)

6: they use the wrong date for the assassination in the playbill >:( (26 instead of 14. Stupid typo.)

7: Despite the whole play being super meta, there aren't any even minor allusions to the casting being colorblind (merit-based rather than resemblance-based, resulting in racial diversity that naturally reflects the city of Baltimore & the actors that inhabit her). It could be funny & respectfully done, but makes sense if they plan to do the play in other places with other casts.

All in all, I think that characterizes Wilkes very well, that as an illegitimate son of an unstable radical abolitionist Sephardic Jewish Englishman and a Catholic Englishwoman in rural Maryland & especially at a Quaker & then military Episcopalian, something boarding school full of the sons of enslavers & human traffickers, Wilkes felt extremely isolated. And as a family, the Booths definitely were very isolated, kept to themselves, alienated from others, but I think Joe and Wilkes took it the worst because they hadn't traveled like Ned & June & went to those schools. A desperate need for love, belonging, community led to these radical beliefs, licentious behavior, dramatic attention seeking in every possible way, exaggerated bragging, danger seeking, friendship seeking, lovebombing in any kind of relationship/friendship, and jealous tendencies… It's all coming back to this fundamental alienation.

[quietparanoiac]

I don't want to hear that repeated.

Gentleman Jack (2019–), 2x05