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I don't know how may days this will actually happen but I'm not going to sleep right away because if I move then the explosions in my head may breach the hull.
Matinee: King Lear
I really want to be impressed by Lear. Everybody talks about how it's one of his greatest works. But it just reads like torture porn. There's no redemption, there's no lessons learned. Everybody who was evil is either evil or dead, everybody who was good is either good or dead. Or maimed. Or something. Which is a shame, because there's some amazing dialogue here. This is a modern production, which I thought was very effective, and the cast was top notch. Also? How the hell did I miss that Taylor Goddamned Doose joined the company several years ago?
Evening: Cymbeline
I had never seen this one before, and I swear to G*d that if I didn't know better I would have thought it was Shakespeare parody. There are like 343996 plotlines and 3984329 locations. So many plotlines in fact that at the end they say "Well hell, it's Act V. Okay, everybody queue up and tell us how your plotline ends." And then you have bad guys who show you their sinister subterfuge that nobody had noticed so far and ask if you would please either arrest them or kill them. There is a literal Deus ex Machina, where two ghosts say "Dear Jupiter, our son is a very nice boy, except for the part where he took a hit out on his wife, so maybe you could give him a happy ending?" You have the Fidele Sue character, whom everybody loves and trusts and welcomes into their confidence upon first meeting him in the middle of war torn Britain. There are so many coincidences being thrown into play at once that the king has to wade in and play traffic cop.
However, it did have a "Return of the Jedi" ending complete with
Yub yub!
Matinee: King Lear
I really want to be impressed by Lear. Everybody talks about how it's one of his greatest works. But it just reads like torture porn. There's no redemption, there's no lessons learned. Everybody who was evil is either evil or dead, everybody who was good is either good or dead. Or maimed. Or something. Which is a shame, because there's some amazing dialogue here. This is a modern production, which I thought was very effective, and the cast was top notch. Also? How the hell did I miss that Taylor Goddamned Doose joined the company several years ago?
Evening: Cymbeline
I had never seen this one before, and I swear to G*d that if I didn't know better I would have thought it was Shakespeare parody. There are like 343996 plotlines and 3984329 locations. So many plotlines in fact that at the end they say "Well hell, it's Act V. Okay, everybody queue up and tell us how your plotline ends." And then you have bad guys who show you their sinister subterfuge that nobody had noticed so far and ask if you would please either arrest them or kill them. There is a literal Deus ex Machina, where two ghosts say "Dear Jupiter, our son is a very nice boy, except for the part where he took a hit out on his wife, so maybe you could give him a happy ending?" You have the Fidele Sue character, whom everybody loves and trusts and welcomes into their confidence upon first meeting him in the middle of war torn Britain. There are so many coincidences being thrown into play at once that the king has to wade in and play traffic cop.
However, it did have a "Return of the Jedi" ending complete with
- "I love her!" "She's your sister!"
- Four ghosts hanging out and glowing smugly.
- While everybody else sings.
Yub yub!