reginalds replied to your post
“potentially the most important bit of the globe’s much ado that i…”
tell me more pls i live for the pop up globe and everything related to it
!!!!! this production is the entire reason i’m alive thank u for letting me gush (also i’m moving back down to melbourne again soon and i am v hype about the pop up globe Look Out)
look at these production photos. i want to glue them directly onto my eyeballs
it was set during the mexican revolution which the director said was mostly an aesthetic choice but idk i thought it was really present?? there’s a little prologue at the beginning entirely in spanish of everyone huddled on top of each other on the train, drinking and singing and bickering over the campfire, and then a MAN WITH A WOUNDED LEG GETS CARRIED SCREAMING THROUGH THE AUDIENCE ON A STRETCHER etc etc. the cast was almost entirely poc and at the end they sang a revolution anthem and the stage was lit up in the colours of the mexican flag
but ya the aesthetic was gr8. traditional dance and dress, a lot of the singing was in spanish and the music was performed by a lil mariachi band on top of the train carriage set. the whole thing was just really energetic and colourful and joyous
like ‘sigh not so’ starts out really weepy and traditional and then balthazar and claudio break into this really upbeat dance number, i’m pretty sure someone does a cartwheel at some point, and then they just. go right back to it. ‘siiiigh not soooo’
don john was donna juana!! which i thought was interesting bc there’s a lot more to be said about a bitter woman knowingly inflicting that kind of ruination on another woman than a bitter man just out here for shits and gigs, but we didn’t really get to go into it that much. hearing the ‘let me be that i am’ speech from a woman really had me feelin some kind of way tho
also antonio was antonia and she was a huge lesbian with her gf ursula
this really isn’t relevant to anything but don pedro had the biggest, toothiest grin that he was constantly flashing around the stage and it’s so vivid in my mind it is Vital that you know this information
benedick is shooting cans off the top of the train when claudio is telling him how much he loves hero only one of the cans fell forward onto the stage and distracted claudio so he just paused mid-speech like ‘hey nice one’ ‘yeah’
later margaret has a go and misses every shot (‘BOLLOCKS,’ she says, in the most cockney accent ever) and then hero takes the gun from her and hits every one
they never show pedro and claudio at hero’s window the night before the wedding; you go into intermission with hero singing ‘desperate kingdom of love’ (which they kind of used as hero’s theme) which was honestly just as devastating bc she’s so young and sweet and u just Know she’s about to get rekt. that being said she was absolutely seething with heartbreak and rage after the wedding which was refreshing
dogberry and verges. oh my god. dogberry was a clueless white american filmmaker and ‘speaking spanish’ was just him using a dreadful cockney accent that a very weary verges had to keep correcting whilst the rest of the cast just looked at each other in dismay. sometimes i get very tired very quickly of shakespeare’s fool shenanigans but this was just a really fun and creative way to do it that worked with the context of the setting i loved it
uh rip but ben/bea are truly my fav characters/fav couple…. Ever so like. here’s a whole separate bit for them bc i struggle to describe the ~~Vibe~~ in a way that does them justice but uhh. they were very very good
benedick was so?? funny??? he hides in the train carriage and when he hears that beatrice is in love with him the window BURSTS OPEN and he looks out with the biggest >:O face. he walks on at iii.ii all clean-shaven and dressed up smoochin a photo of beatrice which he IMMEDIATELY STUFFS INTO HIS MOUTH when pedro and co. walk in and does the rest of the scene with a wad of paper stuffed in his cheek. ‘i have the toothache’
when he was writing his shitty sonnets he said ‘the only thing that rhymes with senorita is…… well all i’ve got is healthy eater’ and someone in the audience clapped as they laughed and he GLARED at them and snapped ‘oh don’t applaud that, come on’
this is what he does when he decides to court beatrice (‘love meeeee!!!! why, it must be requited!’) and he does it again at ‘i was about to protest that i loved you’ ‘then do!!!! with all thy heart’ because he’s a giant dweeb
SPEAKING OF DWEEBS. beatrice calls claudio ‘civil as an orange’ and she LAUGHS and says ‘civil orange!! geddit?? seville orange??’ and everyone just stares at her blankly and she throws her hands up and yells ‘JESUS why do i BOTHER’, bc she’s fierce and sharp and snarky but more than anything else just absolutely spilling over with life and love. even after the fallout of pedro’s proposal she still runs off laughing, which i thought was really interesting
beatrice, pouring tequila shots before the masquerade: ‘one for hero’ [hero takes a shot] ‘and one [shot] for [shot] beatrice [shot]……. [shot]’ what an icon
i couldn’t 100% swear to it but i Think she says ‘you always finish with a jade’s trick- and too soon’ or something along those lines much to ben’s outrage so like…… they banged
beatrice comes in at v.ii wearing a bullet belt over each shoulder, a truly iconic look that changed me as a person. also at ‘for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?’ benedick climbs and swings off a ladder on the side of the carriage in the most ridiculously flirty way he’s DUMB
when they’re reading each other’s letters at the end benedick is genuinely touched by what she’s written while beatrice is kinda laughing and nudging him like ‘seriously?’ and he pulls a face like ‘oh yeah it’s pretty bad huh’. then she frowns and says ‘healthy eater??’ and benedick’s snatches it back like ‘ok that’s enough now’
ANYWHOMST…… i love this play i love this production thank you god and matthew dunster for my life
