#also like. whatever blind casting etc etc. THATS NOT REAL LMAO

[jack-kellys]

alright i'm back

so i think i need to start by saying that just because the lines of a scene don't change/aren't added to doesn't mean the scene doesn't change. that's why revivals exist in theater.

i think also that it should be pretty obvious that jack being a black poor orphan instead of a white poor orphan automatically makes any relationship between him and katherine... astronomically impacted. or maybe someone had seen one of the understudies play jack but like. michael was cast as jack, and not to be like "michael and i got to talk abt jacks blackness" but we like did @ stagedoor and he agreed that it does change much of the story being told.

so "what is this about?" "i ain't stupid, i know that girls like you don't end up with guys like me." are automatically recontextualized, since now there is an even further obvious intersectionality within jack as a character and within he and katherine's potential relationship. it makes the scene an even more desperate reaching out of one another, and it (am i mixed and biased. yes) made me want to root for jatherine more than any other jatherine gave me reason to (this is also bc bronte's and michael's stage chemistry is just MILES BETTER LMAO...). bc in theory katherine can dress up white jack kelly in nicer clothes and parade him around and while it wouldn't be accepted, like it. you can't do that with a black boy in 1899!!!! you literally cannot, jack could... suffer some real consequences from even holding her hand. it would endanger him for their relationship to be public.

i think it also makes jack's feeling of betrayal and his anger towards her much more justified, and bronte also plays katherine quite guilty even as she's trying to defend her actions ("i... never lied!" ok girl.) michael's jack imo also hinges more on the fact that pulitzer is the person who is her dad and not rly the fact that she betrayed them (accidentally but. rather ignorant of it girl). like he's more angry that she didn't tell him that he's her dad, and like. yes. oh my god. because that puts him in so much more danger than he's already in– pulitzer knows they're at the very least friends, but pulitzer knows that jack fucking likes her, bc "you did say he wanted to go west, right darling? are you kidding me. idk IDK THE STAKES ARE JUST. RAISED. trust me im black.

also EXCLUDING race…. the way jack reacts to “till the moment i saw you, i thought i knew what love was.”

he is shocked. his eyes widen. love? katherine thinks she’s in love with him? is not a take idt we’ve ever seen… it’s never reacted to at all, and i’m so glad it it is, because let’s face it— how can katherine be in love with jack so soon? right now? with someone like him? jack should be surprised, and michael’s jack finally shows that, which was SO!!! new!!!

i think they added nuance to a scene–whose script has none–quite successfully, and they really do the work to try and save that scene (it is still one of the worst in the show, script-wise), and idk. interracial jatherine nuance lets gooooo.

also hi a while back i rewrote this scene with a brown jack kelly, latino icon... here is that if you wanna see my literal take on it!!

hm i just saw a post that said that something to believe in didn’t have any changes in the uk version… when i’m not writing an essay someone remind me to write a different essay about how it felt miles a) different and b) better