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Dec. 28th, 2015 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsIn the past two weeks, I have seen two children's musicals. One was New Repertory Theater's The Snow Queen, which jinian has already posted about, and genarti has promised to post about, and littledust has made a number of pointed tweets about, so I'm just going to ... let that unfortunate conglomeration of snow bees, talking flowers and poor directorial judgment sit where it's lying for a while.
INSTEAD I am going to talk about A.R.T.'s The Pirate Princess, the Twelfth Night MUSICAL PIRATE AU, whichgenarti and I went to see tonight and which was everything we wanted it to be and more!
The Pirate Princess starts out by introducing us to Princess Violet and Prince Victor aka Thom and Alanna of Trebond. Violet just wants to swordfight! Victor, on the other hand just wants to stay home and read a book. All this is much to the concern of their bodyguard/fencing tutor Tony (who, alas, has absolutely zero subtext with Victor.)
Then, of course, their ship is destroyed by a KRAKEN!
Violet washes up on the shores of Illyria, and bumps into the Fool (female actress, character gender unclear) who explains that the island is inhabited by PIRATES, led by the fierce CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! --
-- and let us all pause for a moment to admire the visionary creative decision to transform the role of Orsino, Shakespeare's soppiest and most emo romantic lead, into a pirate named CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! --
-- but the pirates will not talk to a woman. Crossdressing ahoy! Violet transforms herself into "V" and promptly earns her place on the pirate ship by insulting CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! in a limerick battle.
CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! then confides in V that a.) his mission in life is to kill "THE FRAKKIN' KRAKEN," who KILLED HIS FATHER! and b.) that he is in love with Olivia, the queen of the island. He asks V for wooing advice; V recommends finding other words for women besides 'wench', writing poetry (this is a bad idea) and handholding, which it is of course necessary that V and CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! practice at great length. It's also important to note that CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! calls V "pretty boy" for the entire length of this scene and the rest of the show.
Meanwhile, Queen Olivia, an ARTISTIC SOUL, is being taken to task by a very long-suffering Maria for spending all her time PAINTING instead of preparing to, you know, actually rule the country. (Olivia only paints in black. It expresses her feelings.) V turns up, she is accidentally over-successful in her wooing, she flees, Olivia pines, and it's all very straight Twelfth Night up until Olivia writes dreamily all about her date with V in a letter-in-a-bottle-to-her-dead-brother, which she flings into the ocean, where it's picked up by THE KRAKEN.
The Kraken is mournful. The Kraken has bright yellow tentacles. The Kraken only destroyed Violet and Victor's ship to get Olivia's attention, because the Kraken has been reading Olivia's letters-in-a-bottle-to-her-dead-brother and is MADLY IN LOVE WITH HER.
It was at this point that we realized that THE KRAKEN WAS MALVOLIO. *___*
As a result, Victor -- trapped in the Kraken's clutches with Tony -- has no choice but to leave Tony behind as security for his good behavior and go attempt to woo Olivia on THE KRAKEN's behalf!
Naturally there is some identity confusion followed by a scene in which Victor is like "Oh I see, your all-black painting expresses your FEELINGS OF GRIEF!" and Olivia is like "NOBODY ELSE EVER UNDERSTOOD ME LIKE THAT BEFORE!" and then they bond over death-of-a-sibling feelings, and Victor teaches Olivia to paint with all the colors of the wind, and then they have a paint fight it's actually legitimately adorable. By the time they kiss at the end of this scene they have successfully become the only version of Olivia and Sebastian to be cuter and more convincing as a couple than Olivia and Viola; well done, kids!
Speaking of Viola: she's busy expressing her confused emotions by picking a fight with CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! and then defeating him in a epic swordfight, after which he temporarily kicks her off the ship for insubordination and makes her sleep on the dock, then sneakily covers her up with a blanket when he thinks she's asleep. "I feel gross," wails Viola, singing the Fool a hilarious and highly resentful song about squishy romantic feelings: "I want to hold him close ... AND IT'S SOOOOOO GROSS!"
The Fool commiserates; she was once in love with a mermaid and she let her swim away. :(
(We're assuming this is replacement gay content for the absence of Antonio/Sebastian. Which is of course sorely missed, but on the other hand: lesbian!Fool/mermaid!!!)
Anyway, things are coming to a head. While Violet is getting ready to confess to CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!, CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! and the crew instead find Sebastian, who cheerfully tells them that he's working for the Kraken, aka CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!'s WORST ENEMY.
CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!: "Pretty boy, pretty boy, pretty boy, YOU BETRAYED ME!"
SEBASTIAN: ????
So the pirates want to make Sebastian walk the plank, and CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! is trying to work himself up to the pitch of murdering him and failing on account of ALL HIS FEELINGS, when they are all interrupted by THE KRAKEN who -- coached by Tony -- is there to sing Olivia a SONG about all HIS feelings and then there is a lengthy song about how she should come to the bottom of the sea with him and enjoy his eight-armed embrace and we sit there, in a theater full of children, trying very, very hard to maintain straight faces and clean minds.
...Olivia, now dressed in bright pink and with a rainbow finger-painted crown (much to Maria's deep, deep chagrin and dismay), is very polite but firm in her rejection.
The heartsick Kraken at this point at this point decides his second-best option is to eat her, but Victor jumps in front of Olivia with a sword, and Violet turns up in the nick of time to talk the Kraken into forming a band instead (OF COURSE), and they have a joyous reunion, and then explain excitedly to Tony that they learned each other's skillsets!, and then it turns out that Tony is in fact CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!'s LONG-LOST FATHER who didn't actually die in the kraken accident after all, so that's all right.
And then Violet and CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! decide to get married and sail off together in his pirate ship (Violet: "I can be a pirate AND a princess!") and he makes her co-captain, so that's all right.
And Olivia proposes to Victor, and Victor's like "but I don't want to be a king, I want to be a librarian...and I'm terrible at fighting...." and Olivia says "That's fine, you can be a librarian-king, and I can paint, and Maria can become our chief general!" and Maria the long-suffering, clearly the ONLY ONE in the kingdom who is actually competent at governing, gets a terrible gleam in her eye and says, "I always wanted to be in charge of an army!" so that's all right. (I gotta be honest, for the first half the show I was a little disappointed that the pirate named Groghead didn't turn out to be AU!Sir Toby Belch, but GENERAL MARIA is a way better fate for her.)
And then the Fool, inspired by all this love, decides she is going to go off in search of her mermaid, so that is more than all right. Fool/mermaid forever!!
genarti has promised to post about, and littledust has made a number of pointed tweets about, so I'm just going to ... let that unfortunate conglomeration of snow bees, talking flowers and poor directorial judgment sit where it's lying for a while. INSTEAD I am going to talk about A.R.T.'s The Pirate Princess, the Twelfth Night MUSICAL PIRATE AU, which
genarti and I went to see tonight and which was everything we wanted it to be and more!The Pirate Princess starts out by introducing us to Princess Violet and Prince Victor aka Thom and Alanna of Trebond. Violet just wants to swordfight! Victor, on the other hand just wants to stay home and read a book. All this is much to the concern of their bodyguard/fencing tutor Tony (who, alas, has absolutely zero subtext with Victor.)
Then, of course, their ship is destroyed by a KRAKEN!
Violet washes up on the shores of Illyria, and bumps into the Fool (female actress, character gender unclear) who explains that the island is inhabited by PIRATES, led by the fierce CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! --
-- and let us all pause for a moment to admire the visionary creative decision to transform the role of Orsino, Shakespeare's soppiest and most emo romantic lead, into a pirate named CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! --
-- but the pirates will not talk to a woman. Crossdressing ahoy! Violet transforms herself into "V" and promptly earns her place on the pirate ship by insulting CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! in a limerick battle.
CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! then confides in V that a.) his mission in life is to kill "THE FRAKKIN' KRAKEN," who KILLED HIS FATHER! and b.) that he is in love with Olivia, the queen of the island. He asks V for wooing advice; V recommends finding other words for women besides 'wench', writing poetry (this is a bad idea) and handholding, which it is of course necessary that V and CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! practice at great length. It's also important to note that CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! calls V "pretty boy" for the entire length of this scene and the rest of the show.
Meanwhile, Queen Olivia, an ARTISTIC SOUL, is being taken to task by a very long-suffering Maria for spending all her time PAINTING instead of preparing to, you know, actually rule the country. (Olivia only paints in black. It expresses her feelings.) V turns up, she is accidentally over-successful in her wooing, she flees, Olivia pines, and it's all very straight Twelfth Night up until Olivia writes dreamily all about her date with V in a letter-in-a-bottle-to-her-dead-brother, which she flings into the ocean, where it's picked up by THE KRAKEN.
The Kraken is mournful. The Kraken has bright yellow tentacles. The Kraken only destroyed Violet and Victor's ship to get Olivia's attention, because the Kraken has been reading Olivia's letters-in-a-bottle-to-her-dead-brother and is MADLY IN LOVE WITH HER.
It was at this point that we realized that THE KRAKEN WAS MALVOLIO. *___*
As a result, Victor -- trapped in the Kraken's clutches with Tony -- has no choice but to leave Tony behind as security for his good behavior and go attempt to woo Olivia on THE KRAKEN's behalf!
Naturally there is some identity confusion followed by a scene in which Victor is like "Oh I see, your all-black painting expresses your FEELINGS OF GRIEF!" and Olivia is like "NOBODY ELSE EVER UNDERSTOOD ME LIKE THAT BEFORE!" and then they bond over death-of-a-sibling feelings, and Victor teaches Olivia to paint with all the colors of the wind, and then they have a paint fight it's actually legitimately adorable. By the time they kiss at the end of this scene they have successfully become the only version of Olivia and Sebastian to be cuter and more convincing as a couple than Olivia and Viola; well done, kids!
Speaking of Viola: she's busy expressing her confused emotions by picking a fight with CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! and then defeating him in a epic swordfight, after which he temporarily kicks her off the ship for insubordination and makes her sleep on the dock, then sneakily covers her up with a blanket when he thinks she's asleep. "I feel gross," wails Viola, singing the Fool a hilarious and highly resentful song about squishy romantic feelings: "I want to hold him close ... AND IT'S SOOOOOO GROSS!"
The Fool commiserates; she was once in love with a mermaid and she let her swim away. :(
(We're assuming this is replacement gay content for the absence of Antonio/Sebastian. Which is of course sorely missed, but on the other hand: lesbian!Fool/mermaid!!!)
Anyway, things are coming to a head. While Violet is getting ready to confess to CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!, CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! and the crew instead find Sebastian, who cheerfully tells them that he's working for the Kraken, aka CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!'s WORST ENEMY.
CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!: "Pretty boy, pretty boy, pretty boy, YOU BETRAYED ME!"
SEBASTIAN: ????
So the pirates want to make Sebastian walk the plank, and CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! is trying to work himself up to the pitch of murdering him and failing on account of ALL HIS FEELINGS, when they are all interrupted by THE KRAKEN who -- coached by Tony -- is there to sing Olivia a SONG about all HIS feelings and then there is a lengthy song about how she should come to the bottom of the sea with him and enjoy his eight-armed embrace and we sit there, in a theater full of children, trying very, very hard to maintain straight faces and clean minds.
...Olivia, now dressed in bright pink and with a rainbow finger-painted crown (much to Maria's deep, deep chagrin and dismay), is very polite but firm in her rejection.
The heartsick Kraken at this point at this point decides his second-best option is to eat her, but Victor jumps in front of Olivia with a sword, and Violet turns up in the nick of time to talk the Kraken into forming a band instead (OF COURSE), and they have a joyous reunion, and then explain excitedly to Tony that they learned each other's skillsets!, and then it turns out that Tony is in fact CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD!'s LONG-LOST FATHER who didn't actually die in the kraken accident after all, so that's all right.
And then Violet and CAPTAIN BLOODBEARD! decide to get married and sail off together in his pirate ship (Violet: "I can be a pirate AND a princess!") and he makes her co-captain, so that's all right.
And Olivia proposes to Victor, and Victor's like "but I don't want to be a king, I want to be a librarian...and I'm terrible at fighting...." and Olivia says "That's fine, you can be a librarian-king, and I can paint, and Maria can become our chief general!" and Maria the long-suffering, clearly the ONLY ONE in the kingdom who is actually competent at governing, gets a terrible gleam in her eye and says, "I always wanted to be in charge of an army!" so that's all right. (I gotta be honest, for the first half the show I was a little disappointed that the pirate named Groghead didn't turn out to be AU!Sir Toby Belch, but GENERAL MARIA is a way better fate for her.)
And then the Fool, inspired by all this love, decides she is going to go off in search of her mermaid, so that is more than all right. Fool/mermaid forever!!
