Shakescenes and Henry V
Aug. 8th, 2005 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaShakescenes ^_^
Everyone thought ours was the "coolest-looking" production-- they liked our make-up and our kilts and everything ^_^ It was lots of fun.
I was SO JEALOUS of the group that did Romeo and Juliet ("The Happy Half"-- select important scenes up until the marriage, in Act II, Scene vi). Gaa . . . lol . . .
Eliza tried to do her "I'm an expert; you're not" thing to me about Romeo and Juliet, the way she's done with all of us-- Kristina with herbs, Nichole with French, Mrs. Glenn with makeup and costuming, all of us with Shakespeare in general-- and it was NOT happening. Oh no. NO ONE acts like they are more an expert on Romeo and Juliet than me, unless they actually ARE. Lol . . . people even had to back me up on that one ^_^
I don't mean to be a spiteful bitch, but that was the one aspect of Eliza that drove me absolutely crazy.
Anyway, it all went well. We did the workshops, one on Shakespeare's words and what he meant by them (Fundamentalist Canon Shakespeare! Lol . . . ), one on movement (shapeness-- and my group was the only group whose actual expression was guessed: "discovery" ^_^), and one on stage combat! Nichole and I did some really slow-motion fighting. It got hypnotic and confusing after a while, lol . . . I was sad we didn't get to use swords, though . . .
The play, Henry V, was awesome. Oh my gosh. Seriously-- I thought it was better than Romeo and Juliet last year, and, to me, that story itself almost trumps all.
I won't go into much detail on the plot, because you can figure that out on your own, but, funny highlights: Tennis balls, a fast-talking Scottish man with a leek in his hat, "That's the humor of it" man, the Boy who looked like Dick Van Dyke as Burt from Mary Poppins, fat talk-the-talk-but-don't-walk-the-walk man, fast-talking Scottish men fighting, and LOTS AND LOTS OF HOT MEN. DOING SHAKESPEARE. *Crumples.* Lol . . .
Everyone and their mother looked like a Harry Potter character, too-- and one guy looked like a blond Rob Teall on crack, with dark circles under his eyes, lol-- the Prince Dauphin looked like Lucius Malfoy (how fitting-- and he was madly in love with his horse, the color of nutmeg, heehee, and he composed sonnets to it ^_^), the man who questioned and then challenged the king (a man after my own heart, lol . . . ) looked an awful lot like how I picture Regulus Black-- pretty hot, not as much as Sirius, and younger, a little more boyish looking. There was also a Hagrid and a Mundungus.
The production was absolutely awesome, though. The set was really weird and minimalist, so at first I was skeptical-- it was all tipped at a 45, and other bits of it jutted out funny, and, aside from a background and some stakes in the background to depict the war, there was nothing but a scaffold to use as furniture, really. It was really cool . . .
The battle scene was so cool . . . all the English men lined up with these random long sticks, meant to be their longbows, and as the French, just a single row of men, in a line across the back of the stage, pantomimed riding towards them, all the English pantomimed drawing their bows in unison and made noises with their mouths to depict letting them go-- all in unison. Then everyone would freeze, and then there'd be a flash of light as the French froze in the positions as if they had been shot. This repeated for a few rounds, and then all-out stage combat broke loose.
The only problem I had was that I can't speak French.
One can even make a strong case (lol, even the lecturer did ^_^) of Henry V being an awful lot like George W. Bush-- shined in the light of those who approve of him. There's a pride element (I doubt Bush would have taken the tennis balls gift very lightly, either, lol . . . ), a genuine belief in a cause that not everyone, including several followings, shares, and a deep religiousness. I can totally see Bush going to a battlefield and kissing a cross drawn in the ground, encouraging everyone else to do so as they did at Agincourt. The scene where he's walking from campfire to campfire reminds me of his Thanksgiving visit to Iraq. I can, sadly, even seeing Bush, threatened at a sudden renewal of power by Al-Qaeda or Iraqi Hussein supporters, killing all those at Guatanamo Bay, as Henry V controversially killed all of the French prisoners of war at Agincourt.
Everyone thought ours was the "coolest-looking" production-- they liked our make-up and our kilts and everything ^_^ It was lots of fun.
I was SO JEALOUS of the group that did Romeo and Juliet ("The Happy Half"-- select important scenes up until the marriage, in Act II, Scene vi). Gaa . . . lol . . .
Eliza tried to do her "I'm an expert; you're not" thing to me about Romeo and Juliet, the way she's done with all of us-- Kristina with herbs, Nichole with French, Mrs. Glenn with makeup and costuming, all of us with Shakespeare in general-- and it was NOT happening. Oh no. NO ONE acts like they are more an expert on Romeo and Juliet than me, unless they actually ARE. Lol . . . people even had to back me up on that one ^_^
I don't mean to be a spiteful bitch, but that was the one aspect of Eliza that drove me absolutely crazy.
Anyway, it all went well. We did the workshops, one on Shakespeare's words and what he meant by them (Fundamentalist Canon Shakespeare! Lol . . . ), one on movement (shapeness-- and my group was the only group whose actual expression was guessed: "discovery" ^_^), and one on stage combat! Nichole and I did some really slow-motion fighting. It got hypnotic and confusing after a while, lol . . . I was sad we didn't get to use swords, though . . .
The play, Henry V, was awesome. Oh my gosh. Seriously-- I thought it was better than Romeo and Juliet last year, and, to me, that story itself almost trumps all.
I won't go into much detail on the plot, because you can figure that out on your own, but, funny highlights: Tennis balls, a fast-talking Scottish man with a leek in his hat, "That's the humor of it" man, the Boy who looked like Dick Van Dyke as Burt from Mary Poppins, fat talk-the-talk-but-don't-walk-the-walk man, fast-talking Scottish men fighting, and LOTS AND LOTS OF HOT MEN. DOING SHAKESPEARE. *Crumples.* Lol . . .
Everyone and their mother looked like a Harry Potter character, too-- and one guy looked like a blond Rob Teall on crack, with dark circles under his eyes, lol-- the Prince Dauphin looked like Lucius Malfoy (how fitting-- and he was madly in love with his horse, the color of nutmeg, heehee, and he composed sonnets to it ^_^), the man who questioned and then challenged the king (a man after my own heart, lol . . . ) looked an awful lot like how I picture Regulus Black-- pretty hot, not as much as Sirius, and younger, a little more boyish looking. There was also a Hagrid and a Mundungus.
The production was absolutely awesome, though. The set was really weird and minimalist, so at first I was skeptical-- it was all tipped at a 45, and other bits of it jutted out funny, and, aside from a background and some stakes in the background to depict the war, there was nothing but a scaffold to use as furniture, really. It was really cool . . .
The battle scene was so cool . . . all the English men lined up with these random long sticks, meant to be their longbows, and as the French, just a single row of men, in a line across the back of the stage, pantomimed riding towards them, all the English pantomimed drawing their bows in unison and made noises with their mouths to depict letting them go-- all in unison. Then everyone would freeze, and then there'd be a flash of light as the French froze in the positions as if they had been shot. This repeated for a few rounds, and then all-out stage combat broke loose.
The only problem I had was that I can't speak French.
One can even make a strong case (lol, even the lecturer did ^_^) of Henry V being an awful lot like George W. Bush-- shined in the light of those who approve of him. There's a pride element (I doubt Bush would have taken the tennis balls gift very lightly, either, lol . . . ), a genuine belief in a cause that not everyone, including several followings, shares, and a deep religiousness. I can totally see Bush going to a battlefield and kissing a cross drawn in the ground, encouraging everyone else to do so as they did at Agincourt. The scene where he's walking from campfire to campfire reminds me of his Thanksgiving visit to Iraq. I can, sadly, even seeing Bush, threatened at a sudden renewal of power by Al-Qaeda or Iraqi Hussein supporters, killing all those at Guatanamo Bay, as Henry V controversially killed all of the French prisoners of war at Agincourt.
