(no subject)
Aug. 3rd, 2019 06:43 pmLast night we went to go see Boston Shakespeare in the Park's Cymbeline, on the Common. It was a perfectly respectable production of Cymbeline, a show that I believe ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
newredshoes once described as a highlights reel of all of Shakespeare's other plot points crammed into one play, featuring as it does:
- fakeout poison
- crossdressing
- a stubborn king who just has to learn to appreciate his daughter more
- a convoluted scheme to make a virtuous wife seem adulterous
- ill-advised bro bets
- an unwanted arranged marriage
- a murderous evil stepmother
- attempted wife murder (based on the aforementioned convoluted scheme to make a virtuous wife seem adulterous)
- kidnapped princes being raised as humble peasants in the Arcadian forest
- fakeout beheading
- a number of rapturous odes to the town of Milford Haven
- the Roman invasion of Britain
- the longest 'have some surprise identity reveals and convoluted explanations!' scene in all of Shakespeare, observed by an audience of confused captive Romans
- Jupiter descending from the heavens to consult with some ghosts
- (I can't believe I had completely forgotten the existence of the scene in which Jupiter descends from the heavens to consult with some ghosts but Boston Shakespeare in the Park wanted to make sure you NOTICED it)
Anyway, we enjoyed it very much, but on the way backgenarti and I started trying to figure out how you'd re-jigger the plot so that you still got all of the various batshit elements and the general shape of the story stayed the same (including -- genarti was very insistent -- the rapturous odes to Milford Haven) but also so that Posthumus Leonatus, the love interest and nominal hero of the piece, is not a literal attempted wife murderer before the happy reconciliation at the end of the story. And after some back and forth, I think we've got it!
( Under the cut so Cymbeline nerds can read it and tell us how we're wrong )
newredshoes once described as a highlights reel of all of Shakespeare's other plot points crammed into one play, featuring as it does: - fakeout poison
- crossdressing
- a stubborn king who just has to learn to appreciate his daughter more
- a convoluted scheme to make a virtuous wife seem adulterous
- ill-advised bro bets
- an unwanted arranged marriage
- a murderous evil stepmother
- attempted wife murder (based on the aforementioned convoluted scheme to make a virtuous wife seem adulterous)
- kidnapped princes being raised as humble peasants in the Arcadian forest
- fakeout beheading
- a number of rapturous odes to the town of Milford Haven
- the Roman invasion of Britain
- the longest 'have some surprise identity reveals and convoluted explanations!' scene in all of Shakespeare, observed by an audience of confused captive Romans
- Jupiter descending from the heavens to consult with some ghosts
- (I can't believe I had completely forgotten the existence of the scene in which Jupiter descends from the heavens to consult with some ghosts but Boston Shakespeare in the Park wanted to make sure you NOTICED it)
Anyway, we enjoyed it very much, but on the way back
genarti and I started trying to figure out how you'd re-jigger the plot so that you still got all of the various batshit elements and the general shape of the story stayed the same (including -- genarti was very insistent -- the rapturous odes to Milford Haven) but also so that Posthumus Leonatus, the love interest and nominal hero of the piece, is not a literal attempted wife murderer before the happy reconciliation at the end of the story. And after some back and forth, I think we've got it! ( Under the cut so Cymbeline nerds can read it and tell us how we're wrong )
