#star crossed lovers in come to me -> romeo and juliet play and or ballet -> dreamstats comments about armand being balthasar

[yearnerspermit]

okay so so iolanta is born blind, right? but she's kept her entire life in this beautiful garden, provided everything she could ever wish for, but her father, the king, orders that her caretakers do everything they can to never speak of light or color or anything with sight. She doesn't know what seeing is, so she doesn't even know she can't see, so doesn't have anything to miss. so somethings off, but shes happy. She knows theres a door to the world outside, but she never questions it and she never leaves. But then theres this doctor whos been taking care of her her whole life, in part by inducing a magical, artificial sleep, but now says he can treat her and give her sight. but, but to do that? She has to want to regain sight, which first means that they have to tell her she's blind, explain what sight is and that she doesn't have it.

And from there she needs to want the treatment and want it to work. But because of all of this, there's a chance that it won't work, right? And the king is terrified that if she learns about her blindness, and it can't be cured, that she'll be overcome with despair at what shes lost. so, so, so, he resolves not to tell her, to just. not reveal anything, and deny her the opportunity to choose, for the sake of preserving this blissful ignorance.

So someone, confined to a lovely, isolated garden, which they never leaves, seemingly, even to them, by their own choice. and those who come in are few, and carefully selected, and access to information restricted, and agency denied. For the sake of keeping her 'happy'

do you see what im getting at. do you see it. do you see

this iwtv stuff is so serious, itll have you doing things like reading a 19th century danish play that was the inspiration for an opera mentioned in the pilot episode looking for parallels. and whats worse is you'll actually find them

[burntcopper]

(text below as it’s a premium article, more pictures and such at the link)

Mark Monahan, dance critic

7 MAY 2019 • 7:00AM

It is one of those volatile spring days where the weather can’t make up its mind, and I am in the studios at Three Mills Island, deep in the East End of London, watching rehearsals for Matthew Bourne’s brand-new production of Romeo and Juliet. To judge by the section of Prokofiev’s ever-astonishing score firing from the speakers, we are in the midst of the final, calamitous scene of Act II.

Tybalt staggers on, paralytically drunk. So far, so familiar to anyone who’s seen certain Tybalts in the Royal Ballet’s production – except that he is also clutching a revolver, which he brandishes at the terrified crowd of young onlookers. He then takes Mercutio and Balthasar hostage, forcing them, at gunpoint, to snog each other. As Bourne slyly tells me a little later, “I should say, it doesn’t follow the plot exactly – it is a Romeo and Juliet-type story We have got a couple of surprises up our sleeve…”

How could Bourne possibly not? After all, he is the dance-theatre supremo who, with his company Adventures in Motion Pictures (recast as New Adventures in 2002), has repeatedly put bold new spins on old works, often opening them up to entirely new audiences.

He is most famous for having redefined ballet at a stroke in 1995 by making all the waterfowl in his Swan Lake brazenly bare-chested men. But he also spiced up Carmen with a dash of The Postman Always Rings Twice and set the result in a steamy garage (The Car Man, 2000); transformed an obscure Sixties film, The Servant, into perhaps the other sexiest dance show so far this millennium (Play Without Words, 2002); and risked taking two adored, emphatically cinematic films – Edward Scissorhands and The Red Shoes – and putting them on stage (in 2005 and 2016). It was also Bourne who set Cinderella in Blitz-ravaged London (1997), thoroughly re-cracked The Nutcracker (1992) and sharpened up The Sleeping Beauty with vampires (2012). The fact that this master choreographer-producer and storyteller – already riding high with his superb current revival of Swan Lake – is now tackling the most stirring balletic tale of all makes this the single most eagerly awaited dance show of 2019.  

“I think the key to the success of this company,” he tells me, “is that it brings in people who feel this is not something they’d normally understand, something they’re a bit scared of.”

So, besides the snippet of Act II that I catch, what sort of Romeo and Juliet can we expect when it launches in Leicester next week? The various New Adventures members I chat to prior to Bourne himself maintain an omertà-like silence about it, saying only that it’s set in an unspecified time in the near future, and reminding me that the show’s tag-line is “Imagine a time when love is forbidden …”.

Thankfully, the New Adventures grand vizier himself – remarkably affable and unstuffy in person – is a little more forthcoming. Designed (as usual with this company) by the terrific Lez Brotherston, the show, Bourne says, will be roughly two hours long, in three acts, but with just one interval, with the score rearranged (by Terry Davies) for a 15-strong live band. He also says that his scenario was “very vaguely” inspired by Anna Hope’s 2016 novel The Ballroom. Beyond that, however, Bourne is careful to tantalise rather than reveal, and this spirit of mystery extends to the show itself.

“We haven’t absolutely hit on a definite ‘this is it’ thing,” he says, “We think all these young people are in this institute. I want the audience to ask, ‘Why are they there? Is this to do with mental health? Is this a borstal? Is this a prison, a school? What is it? What’s going on? They’re obviously receiving some sort of medication. What it comes down to is that any excess of feeling is frowned upon and has to be, um…”

Quelled?

“Yes, quelled – good word! So, emotions are kept to a minimum, and they’re all young people who’ve been dumped there, because they’re trouble.”

Tybalt, Bourne explains, is now a corrupt guard. And, although there appears to be no Capulet family in this version, “we still get one set of parents, the Montagues, who bring Romeo there. We see him arrive, and they’re a bit like Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright in House of Cards, a political couple probably, and Romeo’s a bit of an embarrassment. He’s a bit like [the US President’s youngest child] Barron Trump, but a little bit older. He seems to have been locked away somewhere, bless him, poor boy.”

Bourne also hints that he, true to form, will not be holding back on the sensual side of things.

“I felt I could capture something that’s not in the ballet if we set it in a different time, something that was a bit more raw, a bit more like young people really are. I mean, when they get together, they go for it. They’re not thrilled by a kiss on the cheek – if they’re kissing, they’re kissing for hours.”

The regularity with which the word “young” comes up as we talk nods to another remarkable aspect of this new production. It marks the largest confluence to date of the two main strands of Bourne’s company: its fully professional performing side, and the charitable arm that aims to inspire young people to try their hand at dance. In practice, this means that a huge and heartening number of young people are involved in every aspect of the production which features two separate casts, each with their own set of star-crossed lovers.

It’s remarkable enough that two of the Juliets – Bryony Wood and Bryony Harrison – are just 19 and 21 respectively, and that one of the Romeos (Harrison Dowzell) is also 19. But many of the performers will be younger still.

A year or so ago, the company did a nationwide call-out for what they call the “local casts”. It whittled the 1,000-odd trainee dancers who applied down to 97, all aged 16-19, who will now be performing with the company. Throughout the 13-venue tour, New Adventures will be divided in half, with each half leapfrogging the other across the country. So, as one (dubbed the Capulets) starts performing in one town, the other (the Montagues) will begin a week’s pre-show rehearsal in the next. And waiting to join the company in every city, with the adrenalin doubtless pumping ferociously, will be six of those already-prepped youngsters. (The exception is the Leicester sextet, already involved in the London rehearsals.)

This, I suggest to the young-cast rehearsal director Paul Smethurst, looks like a project that could benefit British dance full-stop. “We have definitely found the next generation of star dancers,” he says. “And, we’ve found so many of them.”

What’s more, this youth drive extends to every aspect of the production. For example, young associate choreographer Arielle Smith is just 22. When she insists to me that Bourne often tells her, “Do what you want to do!”, and Smethurst, that “Arielle has a real voice and a real vision that she’s bringing to the piece”, I do privately wonder just how much trust the 59-year-old, Tony- and Olivier-garlanded Sir Matthew Bourne, OBE can really be putting in one so young. Then, minutes later – with Bourne coaching the principals across the corridor – there she is, working with dozens of corps members, and “holding” the room with complete command.

Now, these are, of course, gender-fluid times, especially in the eyes of the young. Besides which, Hackney-born Bourne (who these days lives in Islington with his partner, fellow choreographer Arthur Pita) has often toyed around with sexuality in his productions. Was he, I wonder, tempted to make his Romeo and Juliet a gay romance?

“Well,” he says, “I suppose years ago I may have gone with that. But, following on from Lord of the Flies [revived in 2014 with a largely teenage cast], which was all men, I didn’t feel this was the right time to go all male. So I thought, no, this is a chance to work with young people of both sexes.”

That said, Tybalt’s viciously enforced embrace does suggest that Bourne is up to plenty of gender-related mischief here.

“Oh, definitely, yes,” he confirms. “We wanted to have all life is here a little bit, especially with all the young people involved. I give them a bit of freedom with whatever sexuality they choose to be – how their character identified was important. For example, Mercutio’s got a boyfriend in this – that’s Balthasar. And there are a couple of girl characters who identify as gay, with one, Frenchy, who’s in love with Juliet.”

If anyone can get away with all this sort of thing, it is Bourne. His theatrical instincts have seldom let him down over the years (2008’s Dorian Gray the exception that proves the rule), and the brief section I see rehearsed – despite the absence of proper set, lighting, costumes and live music – is genuinely thrilling. What, I ask him, is the secret of his success? How has someone who didn’t even start dance training until he was 22 (at the Laban, in south-east London) made such a colossal mark on the dance world?

He credits his famous obsession with character – with giving every single person on stage a backstory and a purpose – with having collaborated on various non-New Adventures shows with “great directors” such as Trevor Nunn, John Caird, Sam Mendes and Richard Eyre. He also adds, “I think the key to the success is that I’m also quite reverential. I love the ballets, I love the scores, and I don’t want to mess with them too much. I want to honour the composers in a way that I feel is OK. And I want to tell a story to people.”

And want to get the audience involved?

“Yes,” he confirms. “And it just comes completely naturally to me. It’s not something I work at. I’ve never thought, ‘How do you get an audience on-side?’ It’s just completely the way I think about things, and I don’t see the point of it otherwise.”

Matthew Bourne’s Romeo + Juliet opens on May 13 at the Curve, Leicester, and tours the UK until October. Details and tickets: new-adventures.net

[jerepars]

The Con Extended Chapter Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here. Direct link to this chapter is here.

Jughead had been right when he’d said anything between us would be different. Special. Maybe it was because we’d waited so long to be together. Maybe it was because we’d come to understand the gravity of our attraction and affection for each other, culminating in love. Sometimes when we laid in bed together, skin to skin, holding hands and staring into the depths of the light in each other’s eyes, it was like we each had everything the other needed to be whole.

This paragraph made me think of "For The Nights I Can't Remember" by Hedley, so then I reworked it when I remembered the part that goes I just wanna hold your hand, stare at you like you’ve got everything I need.

But life didn’t slow down for anyone. By winter, Jughead had begun working on his novel—his eventual final project for his MFA—and I was back in a performance cycle for the Joffrey Ballet’s only mixed repertoire program for the season, Modern Masters. In March, a touring month for the ballet company, Jughead and I came up on our first few weeks of being away from each other since getting together. I was out of town for four weeks, one of which fell during Jughead’s spring break. One of the two limited-run productions performed on tour, in Los Angeles, was a 1930’s retelling of Romeo & Juliet, of forbidden love set against a backdrop of wartime and political conflict. The ballet about the star-crossed lovers only served to make me miss my boyfriend even more. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder. And yes, we were in love, though I was sure we’d be without the tragic ending.

A bunch of little research details in this paragraph. The Joffrey Ballet has Modern Masters on the docket for February. In March, company members will be on tour in Los Angeles for Orphée et Eurydice and Romeo & Juliet. A look at the photos and description of Romeo & Juliet on the venue's website shows that it is definitely not a classic staging of the tragic tale.

Sidenote: I feel like the Joffrey schedule for the 2017-2018 season worked so perfectly for this story. First with Giselle and now I got to mention Romeo & Juliet, something that keeps coming up in canon? Just like the last time I allowed a R&J reference though (in We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner), I feel the need to say that the play's not called Romeo & Juliet, it's The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. So Betty most definitely better be saying that they won't end tragically, like she did in 2x05, and not just straight up R&J.

Final note for this section, SAIC's spring break, according to their calendar, is March 15-18, 2018. The Joffrey Ballet will perform Orphée et Eurydice in LA on various dates from March 10-25, 2018, and Romeo & Juliet on select dates from March 9-17, 2018. So if this were real life, Betty really would be out in LA during Jughead's spring break.

Why does this matter? Why am I like this?

It was the summer that brought about our next long distance challenge. Given the promise of a teaching assistant job with SAIC’s writing department for the next fall, Jughead was able to quit his job at Papyrus to enjoy the summer, which allowed for him to make a sizeable dent in his novel and visit his family. He left for Ohio the second week of June, stopping by to get Jellybean before they both made their way to Riverdale. I would have joined them, but I’d been sought out by some of my favorite Joffrey Academy faculty to participate in the June junior summer intensive session as a mentor. It meant chaperoning a group of nine- to eleven-year-old kids, walking them to and from the dorms, being available to them during lunch and breaks if they wanted to chat with someone in the dance profession (or even as a confidant if they wanted), and accompanying them during the weekend activities for their two-week stay in Chicago. Joffrey dance contracts were from August to May, so company members didn’t get paid during the summer, and the mentoring gig was a relatively painless way to make a little summer cash.

Joffrey Academy summer intensives are, of course, real. Betty would be mentoring students in "Junior Summer Intensive Level 2" because that's the only one that had a June session. I read the entire Summer Intensives FAQ to make sure Betty's brief stint as a mentor was something that actually exists. There are a few paragraphs that mention chaperones and their roles, so it all works out.

Once I was in front of Jughead, he had the same mirth in his eyes as he’d had on the night we shared our first kisses. I grimaced at him and teased, “Oh, honey, you didn’t need to get all dressed up for me.”

“Here I was, excited to see you—counting down the minutes—and that’s the first thing you have to say to me?” Jughead scoffed with mock seriousness.

“You didn’t even shower, did you?” I retorted.

He smiled haughtily and angled his chin down before he wiggled an eyebrow at me. “Do you want to come over here and find out?”

Just a thought...I want way more moments in canon where Jughead shows off his sense of humor (and we aren't just told he has that sense of humor) like Polly's baby shower in 1x08 when he says "What, organizing a baby shower? It's totally on my bucket list," and Betty just smiles at him knowingly. That's the tone I imagine this part would have.

As their gift to their dad for his 50th birthday, Jughead and Jellybean decided they would spend the summer in Riverdale with him, to create new family memories he could look back on and appreciate when, late at night, he had a freight train running through the middle of his head. I thought he was lucky his kids loved him that much, and glad he’d come so far that their plan was viable. I got choked up just thinking about the Joneses flourishing not just individually but as a unit as well. After all the unfortunately true stories I’d heard about their tempestuous past, I knew how much it meant to Jughead for them to thrive.

A quick shout out to the lyrics At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head from Bruce Springsteen's "I'm on Fire". I've definitely referenced this one before, but I can't help it, man, it's The Boss at his best and earlier in the chapter there is mention of driving through New Jersey.