Thoughts on Romeo and Juliet and some catching up on life
It's official, guys. I'm going to Canada in November! I have my flights and hotel booked and my tickets bought. I will get to hang out with redjacket and my tumblr friend doh-rae-me and see Aaron Walpole AND Ramin Karimloo play Valjean, and Earl Carpenter play Javert, and Melissa O'Neil play Eponine and Jonathan Winsby play Courfeyrac and I AM JUST SO EXCITED, OK? XD
Also, work has been keeping me hopping... a lot. Which is both good and not good. 6 day, 50-60 hour weeks do NOT sit right with me. At all. I've been running myself into the ground and I'm exhausted. So, I decided to resign from my Saturday morning job. I will not miss it and I am super glad to have finally reclaimed my weekend. ^_^ And the permanent sub job I picked up at a prestigious private school is a way better choice for classroom experience. ;) Also, my boss at the university has asked me to teach two sections of the class I teach next semester instead of one. Which is awesome and comes with more than twice the salary and some side-benefits like vision and dental, but I'm starting to feel like she's looking at me like a cow from whom she's getting free milk. *sigh* I WANT THAT FULL-TIME FACULTY POSITION, DAMN IT. :-P But, in the meantime, this is a step in the right direction, so I guess we'll just have to see.
Anyway, after all this running myself into the ground I've been doing, my friend C invited me to come see a show with her last night. On the one hand, I was exhausted and didn't want to be bothered going anywhere. On the other hand, we hadn't hung out in a while and I haven't been seeing many shows lately and I wanted to go.
C wanted to see Pippin and I'm always up for seeing it again, but ticket prices were outrageous, so that was a no-go. There wasn't anything else I was really excited about and after some deliberation, we decided we'd meet at TKTS and find something there. Top choices were Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet.
Now... let me explain something to you about my feelings on Romeo and Juliet.
It's the only one of Shakespeare's plays that I've seen or read that I actively dislike. It reads like it was written by a hysterical 13 year old. And to be honest, most of the story past Act I bores me to tears. But, well... I'd never seen an actual stage production of it and don't feel Shakespeare can be fairly judged if you haven't done that. Also... Orlando Bloom. (I mean, I'm as shallow as the next person sometimes. ^_~) So, since I love Cinderella but have seen it twice already, and C really wanted to see R&J, I figured I would give it a chance. After all, if I couldn't enjoy R&J with Orlando Bloom at the helm, I could pretty much write it off after that, you know?
I DID NOT KNOW BRENT CARVER WAS IN IT.
I FOUND OUT WHEN I LOOKED AT THE PLAYBILL.
You don't understand. I've been hearing about Brent Carver ever since I got into JCS and all my Canadian friends were flailing about him not coming down with the rest of the cast and then about him kind of dropping off the face of the acting Earth. I didn't get all the hub-bub and he was this big mystery figure whom I figured I'd never actually see in anything.
I UNDERSTAND WHY ALL THE HUB-BUB, NOW. HE IS AMAZING. XD
*coughs* But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I don't like R&J. That's well-established. My feelings on this particular production are very mixed and biased, in no small part, but that dislike.
So. Good things, first.
We were sitting in Row F, left orchestra, seats 5 and 7. So... pretty damned good seats. Orlando Bloom (and many other actors) raced by us more than once. ^_~
Roslyn Ruff
I thought Roslyn Ruff was fucking amazing as Lady Capulet. She was regal. She was commanding. She brought a level of drama to that stage that was captivating. You couldn't look away from her when she opened her mouth. And her voice just... projects. I never had a problem hearing her and those words rolled off her tongue like velvet.
...it doesn't hurt that she's hot as fuck and looked so damned amazing in that burgundy dress I had to fan myself. Seriously... her BACK. *_* I could stare at it in that dress for hours. And... that's not normally a body part that does much for me, gotta say. ^_~
Brent Carver
I, uh... already squee-babbled about him, so I won't chew your ear off too much, but he was the most adorable and humbly comedic Friar I've ever seen. And I have a bit of an "adorable boys in over-sized clothes" kink and... well. I WANTED TO CUDDLE HIM AND PET HIM AND REASSURE HIM IT WOULD ALL BE ALL RIGHT, EVEN IF I KNEW IT WOULDN'T. *coughs* But, that aside, his endless seasons at Stratford clearly showed in this performance. He has a mastery of that language and he makes it sound fresh and with a modern humor without losing any of its authenticity... JUST BY HIS FACIAL EXPRESSION AND TONE. I was impressed, to say the least. ^_^
Condola Rashad
HOLY OH MY GOODNESS. She was BRILLIANT as Juliet -- she was a perfect mix of wide-eyed, innocent, puppy love ingenue plus sardonic self-aware, empowered woman and I loved it. I must confess, I don't generally have much use for Juliet or Romeo in this story, but I couldn't help but love her. She granted Juliet an agency that doesn't normally come across. Those Tony nominations were well-deserved. *nodnod*
Jane Houdyshell was hysterical as the nurse and Christian Camargo was fantastic as Mercutio and Conrad Kemp was so adorably bumbling as my favorite, favorite Benvolio, just... AW. (Also, I walked away from this production kind of massively shipping Mercutio and Benvolio, because, holy fuck, Mercutio was ALL OVER him the whole show. HE RODE HIM LIKE A PONY AT ONE POINT. O_o;;; *coughs* Ahem. I digress.)
And, then... here we go.
Orlando Bloom
Not for nothing, casting a 30-something year old to play a sixteen year old opposite a wide-eyed much-younger-looking Juliet is problematic. There is potential, as a friend pointed out, to lose some of that frantic 16 year old puppy love and to lend more weight to this love story than it really deserves. That being said, I thought he played down to the age very well. You definitely got the sense that these were two young kids of equal-ish age desperately in the first blush of love.
Also, age aside... Orlando Bloom has some major fucking acting chops and quite a sense of honest, self-directed humor where it's appropriate. I enjoyed him quite a lot, and not just because he's Orlando Bloom. He did a bit of scenery-chewing at times, but... it's Romeo and Juliet. It's ~written~ a little scenery-chewy, so I really can't fault him for that.
...the motorcycle was a bit over-the-top, though, director. Just a point.
SO, in short, some amazing performances and overall, I liked the modern-ed up costumes and the setting. It was very simple, but very effective.
Now, on to the things I didn't like so much.
First things first:
THE FUCKING BELL ROPE
There is a bell rope that hangs down for most of the show and actors knock into it willy-nilly and set it swinging. There are also other parts of the scenery that swing a bit as they are raised. And there's an entire damned scene with Juliet SWINGING ON A SWING as she delivers a soliloquy.
...I'm phobic of things that swing. Like, REALLY phobic. Like adrenaline-laced, heart-racing, can't-even-fucking-look-at-it phobic. So, that was not awesome and looking away from those things made me miss at least half of the play. That sucked. Royally.
Montague vs. Capulet
Another thing that bothered me a bit was that most of the Capulets were black and most of the Montagues were white. The party at the Capulets was full of very ethnic music/dancing with tribal masks and it just... felt a little odd to throw the whole race thing in there like that. I mean, from what I recall, the whole point of the story is that this feud is senseless. It claims innocent lives left and right and there is supposed to be no rhyme or reason to it, whatsoever. Putting it in that racial framing gave the feud more weight and trappings of justification than I felt it merited.
I hate to say it, but...
Orland Bloom's fans
There were a whole bunch of people there who were taking pictures of him at the beginning/ends of acts (i.e. when he's shirtless at the top of Act II), and people cheering for his first appearance and freaking WOLF-WHISTLING when he had his shirt off. I mean... these weren't teen-aged girls, either. They were grown women. Grow the fuck up. And during the last scene, the very last LINES, when the prince is delivering that last speech... someone's fucking cell phone went off. IN THE THIRD ROW. I mean... what the actual fuck?
It made the entire experience feel cheap, somehow, and made me feel very, very bad for Orlando Bloom. The man was delivering a stellar performance -- he, like Condola Rashad, actually made me enjoy the title characters of this play, which I never do. And he was acting his fucking face off.
...and he got wolf-whistled at right at the top of Act II like he was only on that stage to be eye-candy.
That's not OK to do to anyone. Even someone who's a bit of a sex symbol. Now, as I said at the beginning of this, he's the only reason I wanted to see this show to begin with. Did I enjoy that moment of him having his shirt off? Fuck yes, I did. But wolf-whistling and cat-calling was an inappropriate and disrespectful action for this show and this kind of theatre. You want to do that at Hair? Perfectly OK. You want to do it at Priscilla Queen of the Desert? Knock your fucking socks off. But Romeo and Juliet? Shakespeare? AT THAT MOMENT OF ALMOST HEART-STOPPING SWEETNESS RIGHT AT THE CENTER OF THE BIGGEST FUCKING TRAGEDY IN THE PLAY??? NO. Just... fucking NO. It's not appropriate. Keep it to yourself. It soured that entire moment for me from second-hand embarrassment.
So... I don't know. Overall, I'm going to say that I enjoyed individual performances and there were definitely directing choices and setting/scenery choices that I loved... but it was still Romeo and Juliet. And I still don't like that play. Most of Act II bores me to tears. So. Yeah.
tl;dr?
There are some good things going on and some people I would highly recommend in their parts, but I'll be the last one to insist you should see Romeo and Juliet. ^_~
Also, work has been keeping me hopping... a lot. Which is both good and not good. 6 day, 50-60 hour weeks do NOT sit right with me. At all. I've been running myself into the ground and I'm exhausted. So, I decided to resign from my Saturday morning job. I will not miss it and I am super glad to have finally reclaimed my weekend. ^_^ And the permanent sub job I picked up at a prestigious private school is a way better choice for classroom experience. ;) Also, my boss at the university has asked me to teach two sections of the class I teach next semester instead of one. Which is awesome and comes with more than twice the salary and some side-benefits like vision and dental, but I'm starting to feel like she's looking at me like a cow from whom she's getting free milk. *sigh* I WANT THAT FULL-TIME FACULTY POSITION, DAMN IT. :-P But, in the meantime, this is a step in the right direction, so I guess we'll just have to see.
Anyway, after all this running myself into the ground I've been doing, my friend C invited me to come see a show with her last night. On the one hand, I was exhausted and didn't want to be bothered going anywhere. On the other hand, we hadn't hung out in a while and I haven't been seeing many shows lately and I wanted to go.
C wanted to see Pippin and I'm always up for seeing it again, but ticket prices were outrageous, so that was a no-go. There wasn't anything else I was really excited about and after some deliberation, we decided we'd meet at TKTS and find something there. Top choices were Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet.
Now... let me explain something to you about my feelings on Romeo and Juliet.
It's the only one of Shakespeare's plays that I've seen or read that I actively dislike. It reads like it was written by a hysterical 13 year old. And to be honest, most of the story past Act I bores me to tears. But, well... I'd never seen an actual stage production of it and don't feel Shakespeare can be fairly judged if you haven't done that. Also... Orlando Bloom. (I mean, I'm as shallow as the next person sometimes. ^_~) So, since I love Cinderella but have seen it twice already, and C really wanted to see R&J, I figured I would give it a chance. After all, if I couldn't enjoy R&J with Orlando Bloom at the helm, I could pretty much write it off after that, you know?
I DID NOT KNOW BRENT CARVER WAS IN IT.
I FOUND OUT WHEN I LOOKED AT THE PLAYBILL.
You don't understand. I've been hearing about Brent Carver ever since I got into JCS and all my Canadian friends were flailing about him not coming down with the rest of the cast and then about him kind of dropping off the face of the acting Earth. I didn't get all the hub-bub and he was this big mystery figure whom I figured I'd never actually see in anything.
I UNDERSTAND WHY ALL THE HUB-BUB, NOW. HE IS AMAZING. XD
*coughs* But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I don't like R&J. That's well-established. My feelings on this particular production are very mixed and biased, in no small part, but that dislike.
So. Good things, first.
We were sitting in Row F, left orchestra, seats 5 and 7. So... pretty damned good seats. Orlando Bloom (and many other actors) raced by us more than once. ^_~
Roslyn Ruff
I thought Roslyn Ruff was fucking amazing as Lady Capulet. She was regal. She was commanding. She brought a level of drama to that stage that was captivating. You couldn't look away from her when she opened her mouth. And her voice just... projects. I never had a problem hearing her and those words rolled off her tongue like velvet.
...it doesn't hurt that she's hot as fuck and looked so damned amazing in that burgundy dress I had to fan myself. Seriously... her BACK. *_* I could stare at it in that dress for hours. And... that's not normally a body part that does much for me, gotta say. ^_~
Brent Carver
I, uh... already squee-babbled about him, so I won't chew your ear off too much, but he was the most adorable and humbly comedic Friar I've ever seen. And I have a bit of an "adorable boys in over-sized clothes" kink and... well. I WANTED TO CUDDLE HIM AND PET HIM AND REASSURE HIM IT WOULD ALL BE ALL RIGHT, EVEN IF I KNEW IT WOULDN'T. *coughs* But, that aside, his endless seasons at Stratford clearly showed in this performance. He has a mastery of that language and he makes it sound fresh and with a modern humor without losing any of its authenticity... JUST BY HIS FACIAL EXPRESSION AND TONE. I was impressed, to say the least. ^_^
Condola Rashad
HOLY OH MY GOODNESS. She was BRILLIANT as Juliet -- she was a perfect mix of wide-eyed, innocent, puppy love ingenue plus sardonic self-aware, empowered woman and I loved it. I must confess, I don't generally have much use for Juliet or Romeo in this story, but I couldn't help but love her. She granted Juliet an agency that doesn't normally come across. Those Tony nominations were well-deserved. *nodnod*
Jane Houdyshell was hysterical as the nurse and Christian Camargo was fantastic as Mercutio and Conrad Kemp was so adorably bumbling as my favorite, favorite Benvolio, just... AW. (Also, I walked away from this production kind of massively shipping Mercutio and Benvolio, because, holy fuck, Mercutio was ALL OVER him the whole show. HE RODE HIM LIKE A PONY AT ONE POINT. O_o;;; *coughs* Ahem. I digress.)
And, then... here we go.
Orlando Bloom
Not for nothing, casting a 30-something year old to play a sixteen year old opposite a wide-eyed much-younger-looking Juliet is problematic. There is potential, as a friend pointed out, to lose some of that frantic 16 year old puppy love and to lend more weight to this love story than it really deserves. That being said, I thought he played down to the age very well. You definitely got the sense that these were two young kids of equal-ish age desperately in the first blush of love.
Also, age aside... Orlando Bloom has some major fucking acting chops and quite a sense of honest, self-directed humor where it's appropriate. I enjoyed him quite a lot, and not just because he's Orlando Bloom. He did a bit of scenery-chewing at times, but... it's Romeo and Juliet. It's ~written~ a little scenery-chewy, so I really can't fault him for that.
...the motorcycle was a bit over-the-top, though, director. Just a point.
SO, in short, some amazing performances and overall, I liked the modern-ed up costumes and the setting. It was very simple, but very effective.
Now, on to the things I didn't like so much.
First things first:
THE FUCKING BELL ROPE
There is a bell rope that hangs down for most of the show and actors knock into it willy-nilly and set it swinging. There are also other parts of the scenery that swing a bit as they are raised. And there's an entire damned scene with Juliet SWINGING ON A SWING as she delivers a soliloquy.
...I'm phobic of things that swing. Like, REALLY phobic. Like adrenaline-laced, heart-racing, can't-even-fucking-look-at-it phobic. So, that was not awesome and looking away from those things made me miss at least half of the play. That sucked. Royally.
Montague vs. Capulet
Another thing that bothered me a bit was that most of the Capulets were black and most of the Montagues were white. The party at the Capulets was full of very ethnic music/dancing with tribal masks and it just... felt a little odd to throw the whole race thing in there like that. I mean, from what I recall, the whole point of the story is that this feud is senseless. It claims innocent lives left and right and there is supposed to be no rhyme or reason to it, whatsoever. Putting it in that racial framing gave the feud more weight and trappings of justification than I felt it merited.
I hate to say it, but...
Orland Bloom's fans
There were a whole bunch of people there who were taking pictures of him at the beginning/ends of acts (i.e. when he's shirtless at the top of Act II), and people cheering for his first appearance and freaking WOLF-WHISTLING when he had his shirt off. I mean... these weren't teen-aged girls, either. They were grown women. Grow the fuck up. And during the last scene, the very last LINES, when the prince is delivering that last speech... someone's fucking cell phone went off. IN THE THIRD ROW. I mean... what the actual fuck?
It made the entire experience feel cheap, somehow, and made me feel very, very bad for Orlando Bloom. The man was delivering a stellar performance -- he, like Condola Rashad, actually made me enjoy the title characters of this play, which I never do. And he was acting his fucking face off.
...and he got wolf-whistled at right at the top of Act II like he was only on that stage to be eye-candy.
That's not OK to do to anyone. Even someone who's a bit of a sex symbol. Now, as I said at the beginning of this, he's the only reason I wanted to see this show to begin with. Did I enjoy that moment of him having his shirt off? Fuck yes, I did. But wolf-whistling and cat-calling was an inappropriate and disrespectful action for this show and this kind of theatre. You want to do that at Hair? Perfectly OK. You want to do it at Priscilla Queen of the Desert? Knock your fucking socks off. But Romeo and Juliet? Shakespeare? AT THAT MOMENT OF ALMOST HEART-STOPPING SWEETNESS RIGHT AT THE CENTER OF THE BIGGEST FUCKING TRAGEDY IN THE PLAY??? NO. Just... fucking NO. It's not appropriate. Keep it to yourself. It soured that entire moment for me from second-hand embarrassment.
So... I don't know. Overall, I'm going to say that I enjoyed individual performances and there were definitely directing choices and setting/scenery choices that I loved... but it was still Romeo and Juliet. And I still don't like that play. Most of Act II bores me to tears. So. Yeah.
tl;dr?
There are some good things going on and some people I would highly recommend in their parts, but I'll be the last one to insist you should see Romeo and Juliet. ^_~