#it's richard iii time
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thatsuhboldchoice · 3 months ago
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i never thought it'd happen but i managed to find the almeida live richard iii???? i've very much wanted to see it to gauge another rupert goold shakespeare so here we are!
getting to this point was a challenge--like out of the blue the first act showed up on youtube, but the second act wasn't there, so i went searching for it, found it, but the audio in both acts was out of sync so i downloaded them and somehow that fixed the first act but not the second, so i found a free video editor, but had to edit and render it twice bc the issue wasn't that the video was offset, but that it was hair too fast for the audio and now it SEEMS to be fixed but for some reason there are still select scenes that are still out of sync so i think there is very much something deeper going on with varying frame rates in that video, but anyway i managed to get it for the most part watchable
okay time for actual analysis!
i reread the folger edition at work yesterday, which is for the most part pulled from the first folio and so in watching i had to keep looking at the text, because i think they were working by and large with the quarto text
anyway i am now aware that textual differences are many and that finding a cut of riii is going to be thorny
anyway
this production seems very straight to the point
ralph fiennes is obviously a great shakespearean, but there's not much velvet fist going on, more just fist
richard's misogyny is clear in the text, but i think it's a little more complex than what seems to be happening here
to make riii's scenes with the women work--he has to actually woo?
the dark humor is there but the charm not quite
but i know he's got the charm since his antony was solid
scott handy's clarence here is nothing short of spectacular
this is how we deliver text, kiddos
the murderers are a highlight. like this scene is already funny but this is top notch and again i follow everything with handy i see him fighting for his life.
god i really want more out of vanessa redgrave
sorry there are moments where i'm going to insert my own interpretations of this text which i know is not taking this production for what it is but Too Bad
but essentially the way i see the women in this piece, particularly margaret, is not that they're mad at all, but that their pain, rage, and curses are interpreted as mad by the men around them
their "curses" and "prophecies" come true, because they aren't that at all but experience
(which really makes sense if we get the civil war before this)
the doll symbolism makes sense, but the slight battiness to these incredibly powerful women is a little irksome
i feel strongly that the women are the key to this piece and i think that already puts me at odds with this production
continuing on
goold is just very good at clarity and this piece is no exception
rivers, hastings, buckingham, etc. do not give us much in the text to individualize them, but in performance feel totally distinct
again i am just not getting much of an arc out of fiennes' richard?
a little underwhelming
i don't know how to deal with the precocious children in the text other than to put precocious children onstage and...sigh
the scene with the women must be one of the longest and sits at the climax of the piece and is the showdown between the most developed member of the reigning monarchy and richard as the usurper, hence my entire thesis, but i digress..
these three do spectacularly
susan engel in particular is *chef's kiss*
again such clarity and intention and proficiency with the verse let me cry
aislín mcguckin is harrowing and fiery and i really love her elizabeth
but i do want to unpack that scene with richard
i am again missing an arc there
they just kinda bash heads until the r*pe (which i'll get to in a moment) and then she leaves
which i *think* i get---the intent of that action is to subdue her and then she agrees
but here's the thing--there is such parallel between this scene and the anne wooing scene--and he seems to end with the upper hand
and maybe this is just my own personal reading of the text
but again i think *he* thinks he's successfully reenacted that scene
but here's the thing...elizabeth lives? she agrees but then escapes
and it would really help if shakespeare gave us literally anything more with this character other than a brief reference to her daughter marrying richmond at the end
but the key point to me is the emotional conclusion of elizabeth's arc is that she gets away
this scene is so charged that r*pe is logical extension of it
(especially taking into account the fact that in henry vi, richard's VERY first soliloquy is in immediate reaction to watching his brother "woo" elizabeth and that the beginning of the "since i cannot prove a lover i am determined to prove a villain" sentiment. like this is arguably the end of an arc for them)
but i think the entire tension in that scene is that she avoids it or worse
again though that is all my VERY specific interpretation of a very challenging aspect of this play
and this richard has been utilizing sexual violence extensively so i see it
i just don't think it's necessarily the most interesting take
moving on
the staging of the ghost scene with richmond is lovely, just lovely
richard loves richard!
there's the fiennes i know
some depth finally
god i wish i worked in theatres where i could make it rain
really really really strong final image with the mother kneeling at the grave with the works lights from modern dig site
that cuts beautifully across the ages
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eiuuei · 7 months ago
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‘Blue Lily, Lily Blue’ an animation.
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plutonicbees · 5 months ago
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love how gansey canonically wears contacts most of the time but fanart almost always depicts him with his glasses. blue sargent would be rejoicing.
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illumi-nati-png · 4 months ago
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Death
Maura said, “That’s your card.”
On the card on the table was a black knight astride a white horse. The knight’s helmet was lifted so that it was obvious that his face was a bare skull dominated by eyeless sockets. The sun set beyond him, and below his horse’s hooves lay a corpse.
Outside the windows behind them, a breeze hissed audibly through the trees.
“Death.” Gansey read the bottom of the card. He didn’t sound surprised or alarmed. He just read the word like he would read eggs or Cincinnati.
“I thought that psychics didn’t predict death,” Adam said quietly. “I read that the Death card was only symbolic.”
-Maggie Stiefvater
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squash1 · 3 months ago
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you ever think about how gansey’s first & second destiny was blue — the page of cups — and how his third and final destiny was death.
hell of a three.
hell of a prophesy.
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trashedinpluto-jpg · 2 years ago
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a scene from bllb that makes me sad
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kidciitrix · 1 year ago
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made a bunch of trc fake tweets
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part 1, part 2, part 3
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janeeyreofmanderley · 6 days ago
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last-pages · 3 months ago
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"what do you know about welsh kings?"
nothing. but please, tell me more.
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kindercelery · 2 months ago
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This is actually like one of my absolute favorite drawings of him that I've made so I hope y'all like it too
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Og screenshot + alt
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literalite · 1 year ago
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roomies
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suits-of-woe · 4 months ago
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hey does anyone else think about how everybody goes on and on about richard iii's creepy cursed ominous birth but henry vi's birth was also prophesied to bring about his family's destruction?
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does anyone else feel normal about the fact that henry calls richard "less than a mother's hope" when he himself is textually less than his father's hope for his future?
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does anyone else go crazy about narrative foils in the histories? hello? is this thing on?
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gwydpolls · 9 months ago
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Time Travel Question 45: If You Could See the Premiere of One Shakespeare Play, Which Would You Pick?
These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.
This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct grouping.
Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration.
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a-lilguy · 1 year ago
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“As always, there was an all-American war hero look to him, coded in his tousled brown hair, his summer-narrowed hazel eyes, the straight nose that ancient Anglo-Saxons had graciously passed on to him. Everything about him suggested valor and power and a firm handshake.” - Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys
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squash1 · 11 months ago
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it’s always blah blah blah why are you Still so obsessed with the raven cycle blah blah blah it’s been 5 years give it up already blah blah blah seriously it’s embarrassing
like okay????
imagine reading the raven cycle, a literary masterpiece, and then simply, moving on. imagine Not making it your Whole Personality. i think there is something wrong with those people.
some of us have annotated all our books to the point of no return. some of us have spreadsheets. some of us are working on thesis length essays about the raven cycle for fun.
get. on. board.
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wonder-worker · 5 months ago
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this is a Princes in the Tower and Edward of Lancaster stan account btw
#my post#I do not want to hear one word against Edward of Lancaster#not a single one#least of all if you're a yorkist stan who thinks that edmund of rutland's death in battle at 17 by his father's enemies is a tragedy#while simultaneously thinking that edward of lancaster's death in battle at the same age by HIS father's enemies is a cause of celebration#deeply embarrassing and unserious behaviour#and where to even start with how the majority of self-declared 'Yorkists' treat the Princes in the Tower 🤡#I've truly never seen anything like it#first they try to vilify two children (including a literal 9-year-old) for being 'Woodvilles'#which in their minds is synonymous to greed/duplicity/ambition/unworthiness aka how they view the Princes' mother#then they try to deny that their vaunted Richard III murdered them even though they're perfectly willing to believe John murdered Arthur#then they try to argue that Richard III was just 'a man of his times' and downplay his actions even though his usurpation and deposition#of his pre-teen nephews absolutely broke all parameters of politically and personally acceptable behaviour in medieval England#then they try to argue that ACTUALLY the Princes don't matter and we shouldn't spend so much time talking about them#(says the person who spends all their time trying to convince people on the internet that Richard didn't kill them)#then they try to argue that finding out what happened to the Princes shouldn't affect our reading of Richard III and won't change how we#view his reign#even though it absolutely affected how contemporaries viewed him and was what provoked opposition to his rule#like. what is happening here. where is this one-sided beef against a long-dead 12-year-old and 9-year-old coming from?#are you okay?
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