#romeo e giulietta

[lesbiansgoal]

[lenfantdeverone]

I just love how they always try to give Mercutio a recognizable little quirk in all the best RetJ productions.

Like Italian and French revival Mercutios are exceptional singers with a tendency to voyeurism to deliver the sorrowful, hidden mad side of their character.

Hungarian Mercutio, on the other hand, is an incredibile dancer, and Bereczki Zoltàn rarely took a break in the whole show. His Mercutio is high-spirited and energic, delivering a completely different take on Mercutio's madness. He's a tickling bomb, always moving and dancing, but it's in the rare moments when he stops.... and takes it slow..... that he really conveys that deep, sorrowful side of his character.

I love both interpretations, I just love how they always find a way to deliver Mercutio's layered personality through different acting quirks that are unique to him

[loveisjustawaytodieblog]

[luna-dargento]

Se l'amore è villano con te, sii villano con lui. Bucalo se ti buca e buttalo giù.

Romeo e Giulietta, W. Shakespeare

[mariusslonelysoul]

revival!mercutio is the epitome of mental health and emotional stability next to italian!mercutio

[theghostparty]

Roméo et Juliette: de la Haine à l'Amour - Redesign - 2024

If you missed part one with Roméo and Juliette, click here. Once again, long design explanation.

When designing Mercutio specifically, I turned very explicitly inwards in my belief that Mercutio is not a Montague and should not be tied to the Montagues solely. Furthermore, Mercutio has FAMILY--he's the Prince's cousin and if we want to get really semantic about it, he also has a brother, Valentine.

All this being said, in designing Mercutio, I needed to tie him to Le Prince (Escalus) and I did that mostly in dictating that these are the characters who are allowed to wear black, mostly black leather. It's a distinction that goes mostly unnoticed until its pointed out, but no other designs incorporate deep black tones. There's also this strong, olive green tone that borrows from the Montague palette and gold hardware that borrows from the Capulet palette. The Prince's family gets to straddle the line between both worlds.

I thought very texturally for the Montagues and Capulets, so in trying to give the Prince's family something distinct, I landed on this brushstroke texture to give all the leather and denim pieces a custom feeling.

In his Les Rois du Monde look (his base look--I imagine this explicitly directorial choice to have him and the Prince enter together at the top of Vérone and have Mercutio break away to join the Montagues), there is hints of this painterly texture in blue as opposed to the gold of the Prince. I wanted to feel like every alignment Mercutio has with the Montague family is an active choice on his part. I imagine him painted those swaths of blue himself. His trousers are a bleached faded, torn denim.

We see the true royal gold in Le Bal, like, I think it's just funny to think Mercutio already owned these trousers and said "Fuck it" and wore them to dress up in. His look is explicitly jester themed. It's a little bit "Earring Magic Ken Doll" coded, which delights me to no end.

This is also a good place to point out how fixated I became on closure methods in garments. In Roméo's initial design, there is a strong focus on zippers, Le Prince's jacket is held together with gold hook and eye tape at all the seams, and with Mercutio it's all about lacing.

Part of this is in reference to the explicitly gendered ideas around corsetry and playing with that in tandem with Mercutio's generally accepted queer readings. It's also an interesting metaphor to think about being bound--by duty, by honour, by friendship, by tradition--something that Mercutio is so explicitly caught in between in the Montague-Capulet feud.

His final look during Le Duel, is a take on a Jean Paul Gautier design, and is the most partisan look for Mercutio. Doffing his jacket exposes this soft satin and coutil corset top in the faintest hint of blue. A soft underbelly of allegiance that would take to stage blood SO well (and would make who ever was dressing and laundering this show absolutely hate me as a designer, but I digress).

I also think it makes him a nice mirror to Tybalt, who's overarching design element is gold chains.

Tybalt's design is wholly referential to Mark Seibert's Tybalt. Is it because I can never get that little gold and red cropped jacket out of my brain? Perhaps. But I also like to think that design for Tybalt acts as a reflection of Mercutio. The inherent softness assigned to the Capulet family's design (silks, velvets, chiffons) plays really nicely with how much machismo is implied in Tybalt's characterization.

During Vérone, we see him in a half doublet, likely of a low-pile velvet, a satin faced silk period shirt open in an absolutely impractical way, and a floral print denim trouser. I also gave him a little cuban-heeled boot. For fashion.

Tybalt is a good place to also point out that weapons are very intentionally placed in and out of scenes. Mercutio always has a dagger. Roméo leaves his behind during Aimer. Benvolio does not carry one. Tybalt has an ornately sheathed sword. There is this undercurrent of violence for these characters that is dressed up and dressed down, but persists.

In Le Bal, I really leant into the idea of chainmail for this character, in keeping with the concept of chivalry and Arthurian influences. There's a little bit of royal purple thrown in there for good measure as well as a jaw-bone mask that, at best, is foreshadowing and, at its shallowest, looks cool as hell.

During Le Duel, I wanted to strip our fighters down to exposed skin. A lot of this is to do with one of my favourite versions of this scene, Zeffirelli's 1968 Romeo and Juliet. What I love about the sequence is how it devolves from nobel duel to outright brawl--from a distance to something very close and personal. It's the type of step by step tension-building that I really enjoy: where there are moments (when they're just shouting words back at forth, when they're drawing their weapons, when Mercutio would doff his jacket, when Tybalt doffs his doublet) when the fight could have de-escalated. When they could have walked away. But of course, it's not the play if they do.

I just imagine seeing Mark Seibert and Bereczki Zoltán fight would be fun, ultimately.

And now onto Benvolio. I fixated on paring down his looks, and quite frankly, if it weren't for how much I enjoy his little twink clubbing outfit, I would have probably only given him one costume. My justification for this is that Benvolio gets to live. Ostensibly, he has a lifetime past this play of changing to do. I feel very strongly about the idea of Benvolio as a narrator, Benvolio as a passive presence that is forced to become active. He's not certain in the same way that Roméo and Mercutio are about love and hate. He literally spends a whole song stagnating and waffling on how the hell he's going to tell his cousin that his wife is dead. He runs around following their impulses, patching over their problems. I have a lot of feelings about Benvolio as a character.

He's really the softest of the Montague characters in textures: his doublet is torn and slashed denim, his shirt is some sort of billowy linen blend. He has a little bit of metal flair in the form of this thigh adornment, but really he's quite simple--and my comparison to Roméo and Mercutio, he's quite warm. That hint of magenta on Roméo is a full on feature on Benvolio.

I accept any and all slander about my choices for his Le bal look, but by god do I think it's silly and it brings me joy. Suit of armour under ripped green denim, a little navy ribbed singlet with a silver chainmail crop top over it? Lensless silver glasses frames? It makes no real sense, but I stand by my "We're sneaking into the Capulet's ball tonight with very short notice, here's what we can cobble together" reasoning.

[melody708]

Eri innamorata di lui?

Innamorata?... Mi fa sorridere la tua domanda, sai?

Innamorata...

Altroché...

Era la luce dei miei occhi... Era lo yin del mio yang... letteralmente.. così diversi, eppure così uguali..

Per lui provavo qualcosa di così intenso e forte, che faceva davvero paura...

Al mondo, un amore così forte, solo Romeo e Giulietta lo provarono..

Un amore che senza l'altro, può diventare fatale, giusto?.. ecco..

Io provavo per lui ciò che Romeo provava per Giulietta, e che Giulietta provava per Romeo...

Un amore senza barriere, senza confini. Un amore che puoi trovare solo sui libri..

Un amore puro, innocente, vero..

Un amore senza regole, irrequieto, infuocato, passionale..

Un amore talmente grande, che anche le galassie ne erano gelose..

Un amore tormentato...

Si ama così intensamente una volta sola..

Credimi, quando accade, non lo scorderai più un amore così forte...

Per quanto male faccia, non lo scorderai più... Mai più..

[eclipsedshadowk]

I wonder if there's a boot of the Portuguese Roméo et Juliette because

Trans Mercutio

[lenfantdeverone]

Hello!!! Hi!!! RetJ fandom please!!!! I made something something 🤲 my edits are wonky at best but please enjoy!!! Love you RetJ fandom!!!!

[greeneyed-thestral]

[benvoolioo]

it’s so normal for besties to share a long passionate kiss in emotionally charged moments. or whatever luca giacomelli ferrarini said in that interview.

[luna-dargento]

Non giurare sulla luna, sull'incostante luna che ogni mese si muta, a meno che il tuo amore sia altrettanto mutevole.

Romeo e Giulietta, W. Shakespeare

[giuliettacapuleti]

Please reblog, I would love to know!!

[wokulskimybeloved]

imagine these two in one romeo and juliet musical

[basilhallwardrealasfuck]

Also if anyone has a boot or cast recording or literally ANYTHING of the Portuguese production of r+j that would be FANTASTIC

[mercutio-no]

Juliet: Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Romeo: I’m right here..?

Juliet: “Wherefore” means “why”, not “where”.

Romeo: Misunderstandings like these are what define our relationship.