#retj meta

[cto10121]

Me: [at the witness stand] I know I have talked about my preference for a white wedding instead of a color one for Aimer like some productions *glares at the Austrian and Revival*…but really, guys, I mean it. I know it isn’t realistic for RetJ to whip out something white to wear while they’re trying to hide their forbidden love affair from their color-coded families, but it’s the ~symbolism for me. Having RetJ be in their house colors when they are literally getting married and defying said houses is just not it. It’s not white=wedding, it’s white=a color that is RetJ’s alone and doesn’t signify the damn feud. It could be purple (red + blue) or even black (to symbolize their subversion of Verona’s norms). If I were to direct a production, I’d have RetJ begin Aimer in their house colors, (because yeah, it’s ordinary dress, they can’t draw attention) and then change/reveal their white costumes because they are beyond the feud now. Then Romeo would be able to keep some portion of his white costume during On Dit Dans La Rue. It would also give them something to do instead of just singing at each other and going to the altar and kneeling. Speaking of the direction, can we please make Aimer not boring to look at? The French and Hungarian are still the gold standard for direction, but I swear the direction of this scene keeps getting lazier and lazier. I don’t know, does that make sense?

Lawyer: The defense rests.

[cto10121]

Me: [at the witness bench] I am still very much haunted by the removal of the slow-motion Le Bal reprise as a transition to C’est Pas Ma Faute. Because we feel the impact of RetJ finding out they are each other’s enemy all the more, that ominous doom and gloom of it all. It’s a good transition! Instead, the Austrian and Revival version interrupts this with Tybalt and Capulet’s argument and then Tybalt sings C’est Pas Ma Faute in the middle of the ball. Like. Can we not? We need to close on RetJ first before we can focus on Tybalt and Capulet and the plot. Even the London had the wit to put that argument after Le Bal, and it was a perfectly good idea (though the execution was terrible, as always, and getting rid of C’est Pas Ma Faute altogether for a sung Le Bal reprise sucked). The most baffling part of all this is, most if not all productions have followed suit! To this day, we haven’t had a slow-motion Le Bal reprise transition, not even the Takarazuka and Toho. Why not? Is it not very feasible? Is it goofy-looking live? Maybe it’s the sort of thing that makes better sense in a movie than on stage. But I personally feel you can still have Tybalt and Capulet argue after the transition as in the Shakespeare and still work musically. Either way, I don’t want to see more of Tybalt tearing down frozen couples mid-ball because angst, please and thank you.

Lawyer: Objection, Your Honor!

[cto10121]

Me [sits up straight in a straitjacket]: You know what I just realized? That the verses in the original Les Rois du Monde match Romeo’s, Benvolio’s, and Mercutio’s personalities perfectly. Romeo’s verse is about the kings “living at the top” and having “the most beautiful view,” contrasting it with the true kings talking shit about them “below,” which is in-character for Romeo; even in the original Shakespeare his language vacillates between the ethereal and grounded and practical. So of course he would focus on that. By contrast, Benvolio’s verse focuses on how bored and alone the kings are compared to them. Sure enough, Benvolio is a party boy who loves “la danse” (hell, even in the Shakespeare he is the most gung-ho about going to the Capulet party). And of course, Benvolio ending up alone would be his own worst nightmare, which is what happens at the end of the musical (ouch, ouch, ouch). Mercutio’s verse, meanwhile, focuses on the kings’ fear and making “traps” that they would fall into one day. Mercutio comes from a ruling family, so of course his verse would be more political, and it’s in line with his cynicism (also, doing anything out of fear would be so damn stupid to Mercutio). Even the mention of the kings “protecting themselves from everything, even love” is in-character, because Mercutio himself doesn’t believe love is something to be guarded against. It’s something light and not very serious (see: his Shakespearean counterpart describing love as a “tender thing”). So when Romeo and Mercutio sing together, they continue the politically-tinged theme of the kings fighting amongst themselves (Mercutio) and the idiocy of that war (Romeo), with Benvolio echoing them as support. So I guess that’s why I prefer the Romeo-Benvolio-Mercutio verse order rather than the Mercutio-Benvolio-Romeo one in the Hungarian. It just makes it more about the three of them rather than it just being Mercutio talking shit (legit, though, lol), Benvolio being his wingman, and Romeo mostly vibing with (1) throwaway but insightful critique. Also, it just so happens to be the same order the three speak in the equivalent scene in the play, which is a plus. I don’t know, does this make sense?

Therapist: You are a sad, strange woman, and you have my pity

Me: But am I wrong

[cto10121]

Me: [bouncing around in the straitjacket] The problem with the interpretation of R&J being a play about teenage rebellion is that most of the teens in the play don’t actually rebel. Tybalt embraces the feud’s machismo fully, Mercutio is also willing and even eager to fight when the urge strikes him, and even Benvolio gets involved—if just to stop the fighting; otherwise, he does nothing. Every single one of them, even R&J, accept the feud, as a reality at least, and none of them express any desire to change their families’ minds. Only R&J actually do rebel against their families and Verona’s culture of violence and machismo. But they don’t rebel because they themselves believe the feud is wrong (although it’s reasonable to assume so, based on canonical evidence). They rebel because they love each other and want to be together. You almost get the impression that if they had the option of being together but the feud still existing...they would probably choose it. Or at least be sorely tempted. So that’s why I dislike adaptations and stagings that try to go all “youths rule and adults drool!!1!” and dress the characters in this countercultural punk and rock clothing. Verona’s youths are not countercultural; they are products of their cultures, and that’s part of the tragedy.

Therapist: You’re talking about R&J for once instead of the musical. What a breakthrough—

Me: And that’s why the Hungarian version’s punk Gothic aesthetic is not my favorite. Because even in the musical, the youths accept the feud. They just participate in it in their own way different from their parents’—

Therapist: Goddammit

[cto10121]

Me: [lying in a therapist couch] So I’ve been thinking about RetJ being at least two years older than their canonical counterparts (from 14 to 16 for Juliet and from early teen years to 18-19 for Romeo) and how it changes certain aspects of the story. Certainly, they are much more aware of Verona’s bullshit, casting shade on the feud. But they are also much more aware of their alienation. Shakespeare R&J begin their play in a very blah mood (Romeo brooding over Rosaline and Juliet having to put up with the Nurse and her mother trying to pair her up with this stranger). They are clearly not happy, but they are still young enough to accept their alienation as normal. By contrast, RetJ begin their first duet knowing they are different from everyone else and wanting something more. At this point, they are both ready for something different. It’s almost as if the musical were this what-if AU where R&J didn’t meet at 13/16 and their meeting was delayed by two years. During that time, RetJ essentially become more engrossed in their worlds—one with plenty of freedom but also dangerous, and the other with safety but rigid conformity. So it’s no surprise they have more of a sense of the failures and frustrations of both worlds and push back against those more.

Therapist: We were just talking about the new Wicked movie please

[cto10121]

Me: [lying on the therapist couch] So you know how Shakespeare’s R&J has scenes and characters that mirror each other and the theme of doubles (two lovers, two houses, the same number of deaths on each side, etc.)? RetJ is also structured by two, except with mirror songs. Et Voilà Qu’Elle Aime and Avoir Une Fille are the most obvious, of course, but there is also On Dit Dans La Rue (Romeo defending/ proclaiming his love for Juliet to his friends) and Le Poète (Juliette defending/proclaiming her love for Romeo to the Poet). But I think I’ve just discovered another mirror song pair: Les Rois du Monde and Le Pouvoir. LRdM is about youths scorning the adults’ obsession with power while Le Pouvoir is about obsession with power—and of course, the Prince would definitely be considered a king of the world. Revival RetJ kind of gestures at this by having the Prince himself sing the first two lines of Benvolio’s verse (“Kings of the world do what they like / They have everyone around them, but they are alone”) and laughing at it. That’s why LRdM is essentially not hypocritical because the youths engage in the feud in a different way and for different reasons (machismo, coming-of-age stuff) than the adults (power games, politics). I think that’s also why Le Pouvoir has been retained in recent productions—as an Act 2 answer to the youthful idealism of Act 1. I don’t know, does this make sense?

Therapist: We’re going to need a few more sessions.

[cto10121]

Me: [lying on the therapist couch in a straitjacket] I think the reason why I like Cynical!Prince of Verona and even Corrupt!Prince over WellMeaning!Prince for the musical is because it explains why the feud has been going on for so long. I mean, WellMeaning!Prince can still get overwhelmed and fucked over by an extremely unpredictable feud, don’t get me wrong. But if we assume that the princedom is an inherited position, then Musical!Prince must have had countless relatives—fathers, grandfathers, cousins—that have tried and maybe succeed (?) but then fail at putting an end to the feud. You would think that at this point he’d have an idea of how to put an end to the Madness(tm). But what if ending the feud was never the goal at all? What if Musical!Prince, like his kin, just accepted the feud as a fact of Veronian life? What if his concern is to keep the violence at a bare minimum and really bring out the strong arm if things got too heated? That’s at least the impression I got from the original French. There is also an element of divide-and-conquer stratagem—the Prince making sure to cement his rule by keeping the two families from allying with each other. Other productions do lean hard into that authoritarian element, for obvious reasons. But honestly, I also think that in his weird way, Musical!Prince is genuinely concerned with Verona’s welfare. He just thinks this is the way to keep the peace, because it’s the way his predecessors have done. He has lost all hope, if he even had it, of truly ending the feud. Perhaps he actually genuinely dislikes it, like Ladies Capulet and Montagues, but he also can’t imagine Veronian life without it. And maybe he thinks the feud is a good thing in some ways. Also, just a random aside, why do some productions don’t have the Prince’s guard???? It gives me agita seeing the Prince and ONLY the Prince face the families. Celebrities must arrive with security guards, but for the Prince of a feud-torn city-state, it’s YOLO? Please reconsider. Does this even make sense?

Therapist: Honestly I think you just want a badass sexy Prince and all of this is just rationalization on your part

Me: But am I wrong

[cto10121]

The knowledge that Tybalt is Lady Capulet’s nephew and not Capulet’s quite literally haunts me. He isn’t even Capulet by blood and yet he is the most fierce and loyal of the Capulets, a de facto leader to the Capulet cousins. It makes so much sense, too. His aggressiveness powered not only by machismo but a deeply rooted insecurity. He is not Capulet enough so he acts as the most Capulet of them all; he takes on the burden of the feud. And still his uncle dismisses him and his observations. Add in his father’s death and Lady Capulet’s projection of him as his father’s son re: Hungarian RésJ and you get really meaty character motivation.

Maybe that’s why he hates Mercutio so much in the musical. Mercutio is an Escalus and yet he is accepted by the Montagues as one of their own with absolutely no issue. Whereas Tybalt feels he needs to prove his Capulet-ness, his masculinity, that he can fight for honor. It’s a slap in the face; he, Tybalt, had no choice in his house nor could ever be given one. He is a Capulet and he is not. He is a man and yet not quite.

Maybe that’s why he loves Juliet so much too. She is perhaps the few of his clan who accepts him as he is without demand, as well as being perhaps the most authentic and real of them all. She is also very firmly the Madonna in Tybalt’s Madonna-whore complex. And when all of that purity is threatened to be soiled by the Montague heir, of all people, of course he is triggered. Of course he seeks Romeo out. Of course he butts head with a taunting Mercutio. His tragedy is just as written in the stars as the lovers.