#it's richard iii time

[thatsuhboldchoice]

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

[eiuuei]

‘Blue Lily, Lily Blue’ an animation.

[plutonicbees]

love how gansey canonically wears contacts most of the time but fanart almost always depicts him with his glasses. blue sargent would be rejoicing.

[illumi-nati-png]

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

[squash1]

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.

[batedible]

forgot how much i loved the cave scene at the start of blue lily lily blue until i just reread it, the one where gansey falls in the hole. the way blue realises he's actually panicked. and then starts talking about all the bugs it could be under or on him, rather than hornets. and he just tells her to keep talking even if he isn't like convinced by her bug facts. and he says it with a laugh but like we know he's completely genuine. uhghhhhhhhhggggghh. blueseyyyyyyy blueeeesseeeyeyyeygrjegeugrheh i'm sorry i can't i love them

[lackadaisycal-art]

When I say "I like Richard III", I'm not saying I condone or absolve the real historical figure. What I love is the Trinity of Richard III the fictionalised villain, Richard III the fictionalised hero and Richard III, the unknowable approximation of a real person that can be scraped together from historical records. Three separate entities often at total odds with one another and yet conceptually one person. It's the multi-faceted, contradictory, vague idea of him that finds a new way back into the Zeitgeist again and again that I love. He's become folklore.

[h0ndayota]

Do you ever just think about how close we were to The Raven Boys TV adaptation and just-

[wherethemothsgrow]

When the character is rich, deeply troubled, and wear 30 different masks to hide themselves but damn that smile is expensive and everyone wants to buy it!!!

[trashedinpluto-jpg]

a scene from bllb that makes me sad

[kidciitrix]

made a bunch of trc fake tweets

part 1, part 2, part 3

[kindercelery]

This is actually like one of my absolute favorite drawings of him that I've made so I hope y'all like it too

Og screenshot + alt

[last-pages]

"what do you know about welsh kings?"

nothing. but please, tell me more.

[literalite]

roomies

[suits-of-woe]

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?

//

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?

//

does anyone else go crazy about narrative foils in the histories? hello? is this thing on?

[squash1]

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.