#ski shakespeare posts

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still now and forever thinking of the community theater production of Hamlet I saw a few years back, which was pretty much just dead standard and made no unique plot setting or directing choices EXCEPT. at the very end, when the army crashes in and Horatio begins his whole "what is it you would see" speech Fortinbras just fucking shot him to this day my mother and I use "it's like shooting Horatio" as shorthand for "grimdark gotcha-moment that undercuts everything else" and it's amazing how many plots and adaptations it's ended up popping up in through the media I've seen since, but I'll never get over the fact that that was the one unique choice the director had the balls for. yeah, sure, let's shoot horatio.

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god what a fucking time Benedick is having in Much Ado actually. like imagine it. you're here because you won a war (nice, very cool) and you're chilling with your buddies who you won the war with, and OH also your kinda-ex-situationship. and your buddy decides he's getting married to ex-situationship's cousin. okay weird but fine, whatever, you will begrudgingly support his bad decisions. also the situationship might love you???? HOLY SHIT??? holy fuck yes please oh god fuck you thought you'd be dead before you were married, given the whole war thing, but you don't even have TIME for that because your homeboy's marriage is upcoming and sorry what do you mean "no". this aint look like a marriage. he's throwing her on the ground and then he's screaming and calling her a whore and your prince is also screaming and her father is also screaming and your fine ass ex-situationship-situationship-still-maybe-??? is crying and wailing and THE COUSIN IS DEAD. wait no maybe not thank GOD you stop your buddy from killing her and then the father from killing her and then oh god oh fuck it's just you and the fine ass ex you broke the heart of before you went off to war and she's still hopelessly in love with you and she's crying and you can't do anything about it, you can't do anything about any of it and she's just sitting there telling you she needs a friend and she has absolutely none in this world and then she starts sobbing again- and what comes out of your mouth is not comfort or reason or even just sympathetic; no, you open your big fat mouth and yell "I DO LOVE NOTHING IN THE WORLD SO WELL AS YOU"

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when I was in high school at the end of doing the obligatory Romeo and Juliet unit our teacher naturally picked one of the endless movie adaptations for us to watch and so we all ended up watching the 1968 movie version. and while in almost every other respect this movie is...okay, like not top-tier but not terrible either, kinda bog-standard- it has one scene that I like better in it than literally any other adaptation of R+J I've seen, and THAT is Mercutio's death scene

this scene KILLS me. a lot of adaptations I've seen have Mercutio dying offscreen- there's a "oh he's not being serious" period, but at some point he reveals his wounds and everyone gasps and he limps offstage to die (presumably because I see a lot more live outdoor Shakespeare than movies and it's easier to drag someone offstage while they're still alive than try to dim the lights and/or talk over their body while they get bitten fifty times by mosquitoes ig). but this scene sticks with it all the way. nobody realizes anything's wrong; everyone assumes Mercutio's taking the piss and putting on a show all the way up until after he's dead. even as he looks visibly unwell, crawling up the steps, screaming-plague-on-both-your-houses- you can hear the crowd of friends/associates/whatnot going "ayyy! ayyyyyy!" there's some uncertainty (benvolio and romeo both give him ??? wtf dude looks) but for the most part? they're all laughing still romeo and juliet is a story about a bunch of teenagers with their parents' feuds foisted on their shoulders fighting for and about things that should not have been their responsibilities, etc etc. and the main characters obviously have enough moments of their own for that, but i think this is one of the only scenes I've seen that decides to take mercutio's death and really just hammer in that nobody expects this. everyone is fucking around in this scene! Benvolio looks up and announces "Brave Mercutio's dead" and in every other adaptation I see this is a grave, sad moment- but here it's met with "awww come on" and scoffing. they're young. they're fucking around. it's such an excellent chance to keep making that Unmissable And Apparent and for all of the other weird qualms I remember having about this movie this is the take on Mercutio's death I wish I saw replicated more often tbh. prime moment for it

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"i asked gemini" oh yeah? well I asked my lady wife and she said we need to kill my king duncan and seize his crown for myself

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thing I think more people should do when staging shakespeare productions: give a main role two actors, and put them both on stage at the same time staging Hamlet in class I saw a group who made two of their members Hamlet in the scene in which he confronts Gertrude, and which one Gertrude could actually see (versus the one who was "invisible"/speaking to the audience) switched. The effect of having one of the Hamlets (who you thought was talking to the audience) suddenly having Gertrude react to her with fear was INCREDIBLE. and when Hamlet stabbed Polonius, it wasn't the Hamlet who was speaking previously- it was the one who had just been "invisible", which is just RIFE with interpretation tbh I've also seen productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream in which Puck is played by two actors, which helped with the insane amount of moving Puck had to do (the set was crazy) but also. ALSO. when either wasn't speaking, they were signing the spoken lines, which was accessible and also fun, considering they usually staged one of the Pucks behind people just. fun idea. too many actors not enough roles? put them both on there

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double production of hamlet in which you have a male and female actor switching off. not only because its cool and we should cast more female hamlets but the implications would be insane. can anybody hear me. where am i. when did i get here

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rewatching much ado and benedick's little "this looks not like a nuptual" in the middle of claudio and hero screaming at each other down the aisle will never not be funny to me benedick: ...i dont think this looks like a wedding normally does

hero and claudio:

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in the vein of thinking about "shakespeare movies I had to watch for school" I should also add that I will never be getting over how the 1996 Hamlet movie makes Hamlet and Horatio have their final conversation like five feet apart from each other

This is the only wide shot we get of them but neither of them ever move any closer to each other as Hamlet keels over. He's doing his "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart" yadda yadda and Horatio is like an entire couch over going "mhm mhm" looking like this

but no he can't get any closer that would be gay obviously. we let the clashing pattern jacket and cravat slide but we can't have Horatio cradling his body that would just be too gay for him to do while his....(checks notes) best friend is dying also the result of having them stay so far away is that their exchange about Horatio letting go of the poisoned cup- which iirc, is usually staged with Horatio right next to Hamlet, where Hamlet has juuuuust enough strength to wrench the cup out of Horatio's hands, and usually spills it, hence the "give me the cup LET GO by heaven I'll have it" line- in this it's just Kenneth Branagh Yelling Very Intensely From The Floor.

like he's got absolutely zero power here Horatio could absolutely down that thing

also they carry Hamlet's body out like this which I distinctly remember not being able to take seriously even a little

fever dream of a movie tbh