#anyway im very much a pacifist if it wasnt obvious

[bananonbinary]

the ideas around "mental fitness" surrounding the military is fascinating to me. like, they have mandatory counselors and shit and send you home if you're too unpredictable, but part of the express purpose of basic training is to destroy you mentally and condition you to follow orders without question. "break you down and build you up again." they want you broken, but in a very specific way where they can use you, and if you break in any other ways, THEN they declare you "unfit."

as if seeing and actively causing death every day could possibly leave anyone mentally okay. as if following orders blindly even when you know it's morally contemptible isn't an obviously wildly unhealthy mindset. as if it's even POSSIBLE to try and cultivate that mindset above all else AND promote "mental fitness."

[outermaybanks]

do you have like a post where you talk more about the play? like an overview or something? i would have looooved to go see it but i’m not from the US so alas. would love to know more details if you wanna share

No I dont but I don’t mind talking about it I just didnt want to come off as bragging or something:

I was front row and thats the only reason yall didnt get a slime tutorial from me i swear, rudy and the other actors were like a foot away from me. it started with the speech y’know “two star crossed lovers in fair verona where we lay our scene” by the friar/priest guy, and then rudy and the actress for juliet stepped out in the background and my heart stopped just bc its so weird when you only see someone on your tv or phone and suddenly they’re actually on front of you yknow? and rudy played romeo veryyyyy well, very lovesick, very i-write-poetry-but-never-show-anyone.

It was also obvious that he and the actor for Mercutio took inspiration from the leondardo dicaprio romeo & juliet, they had some very homo erotic moments. juliet was very talented as well, when tybolt died she let out a very guttural sob, then quickly did some girl math to not be mad at romeo about it very real of a teenage girl.

both rudy and the actress for juliet were soooo good at playing absolutely lovesick, ready to die for one another lovers. It was in the small details for me, like i mentioned in a post last night, even when they were in the background they stayed in character believably, how they looked at each other, the way romeo looked at juliet, it was mesmorizing to watch. even my bf who was just there to be supportive was taken aback and in awe of rudy and the actress for juliet’s taken.

the glow orb was much more involved than originally thought, I thought maybe it was only for the masquerade scene, nope.

during the marriage scene they kept doing this cute thing where everytime the priest wasnt looking they’d get closer, hold hands, whisper loving things to each other. i promise yall on everything in me: RUDY CAN ACT HIS ASS OFF AND PLAY IN-LOVE VERY CONVINCINGLY AND THATS HOW I KNOW THERE WERE EVIL FORCES AT PLAY ON THE SET OF OBX !!!!

anyway….

what else did i really like… they were really fighting. like obviously choreographed but no stunt doubles they pushed that little blonde man up against the ‘wall’ (the set for the majority of the play was very plain with like nine cubes/boxes some were hollow, that could be moved or separated, it served as walls, as the balcony, a gate etc) and held him there, threw each other around and romeo was like a pacifist trying not to kill the woman he love’s cousin and was taking those punches like a champ, until tybolt killed mercutio

also i audibly whimpered during the big fight scene bc rudy was fucking devastated about losing mercutio and held him close and mercutio got his blood all over him.

i talked a but about a scene where mercutio was giving romeo shit. that mercutio was also so incredibly talented, and definitely took alllll his inspo from the leo dicaprio version. so mercutio is giving romeo shit like “ohhh he’s depressed bc he can’t get laid” and romeo is like “bro does it look like i dont get pussy?” and then he liked grabbed his crotch and basically started acting like teenage boys talking about sex (this was after the marriage and interpretive consummation background scene) and i dont want to say ‘humping’ each other but…. very close to it.

the end part of the play this big platform was lowered and suddenly there was a bunch of dirt on the stage, and yall know how it goes, juliet pretends to kill herself, romeo does kill himself, juliet wakes up and kills herself for realsies, the only real difference in this director’s version of romeo and juliet is that the two families very clearly forgive each other, we see romeo and juliet in heaven with mercutio and tybolt

thats all the big things that stuck with me and if anyone wants to ask about a more specific scene lmk

im gonna be completely honest romeo and juliet is one of my lesser liked shakespeare plays so there were some moments I was appreciating getting to stare at rudy’s face without a screen between us, had he been in macbeth i probably would’ve gotten a passport and flew anywhere to see him in it