(no subject)

[skygiants]

I just got back from seeing The Revenger's Tragedy at Theater@First in Somerville with aamcnamara and genarti (plus bonus encounter sovay); there is one show left and it is tomorrow and if you are in the Boston area and have the time to go, you should!

Relevant facts:

a.) I love The Revenger's Tragedy. I first read the play in my Jacobean tragedy class in college; I have seen the film, which stars Christopher Eccleston and Eddie Izzard and is set in post-apocalyptic Liverpool, at least four times and no doubt will see it again sometime in the not too distant future.

b.) This version is not set in post-apocalyptic Liverpool. It is set in a circus. The Duke is the ringmaster and evil brothers Supervacuo, Ambitioso, and Junior are all clowns fighting for the clown crown. (Oldest brother Lussorioso is a lion-tamer.) This allows for a lot of truly magnificent physical comedy, as a pair of clowns with painted-on smiles attempt to murder their older brother, badly. It also means that every so often during a scene break someone will come out and sing "The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze" or apologetically juggle.

c.) Because I have seen the film four times, I remembered many of the most important plot elements, including the incest and the secret identities and the poisoned skull. I had, however, forgotten several others that got cut out of the film, including the part when Vindice, our hero protagonist, through a convoluted series of events, gets accidentally hired to murder himself while his brother Hippolito desperately attempts to keep a straight face.

d.) "Everyone was great," said genarti after the show, "but the MVP was Hippolito's face journeys." It's true. They were consistently beautiful.

e.) We were warned there might be blood spatter if we sat in the first row, so we sat in the third like the chickens we are, but we did see some beautiful arcs fountain across the stage during the Grand Guignol finale.

Comments

[genarti]

AGREED ON ALL COUNTS. As someone who has neither read the play nor seen the movie version even one time, I had some difficulty tracking some of the details of how everyone was or wasn't related to each other, but also: IT DOES NOT MATTER. Most or all of them are related, most or all of them are gonna end up murderers or murderees or both, it's fine.

I would however add that the casting of this play was gloriously queer in many directions and it was amazing. (Also that there are sexual assault references, although all sexual assaulters get thoroughly murdered eventually.)

[sovay]

Most or all of them are related, most or all of them are gonna end up murderers or murderees or both, it's fine.

At intermission I was saying to my mother, "They're an incredibly dysfunctional blended family."

[aamcnamara]

The casting was so queer! And the costumes and stage direction backed it the fuck up and it was awesome. Making it queer definitely lessened the "oh wow gosh this is EXTREMELY misogynistic" aspect of the show, which was nice, that was nice.

Of course it is impossible to take all the misogyny out ("I am so sad about my wife being dead, she was just SO CHASTE" okay, buddy) but they had a good try at it and mitigated a great deal! A+ for that.

[skygiants]

THE CASTING WAS SO GOOD.

That is one thing I like about the film that I don't know if the show quite managed, which is to make it explicit that Antonio's own form of misogyny, and his eagerness to use what happened to his wife to stoke his own political ambition, is just another face of the same rot that's all throughout the court.

[aamcnamara]

Yeah, you're right; he was played pretty straight (pun intended) here.

[genarti]

Yeah, although I did note his crying makeup -- the literally painted-on LOOK HOW SAD I AM over top of what he was actually feeling (which doubtless did genuinely include sadness! but also, you know, all the rest.)

[reconditarmonia]

See, I don't like it when productions do this!! (Besides the film, it's also the case in the Jesse Berger adaptation.) I think it's really important for Vindice's character that he has no place in an honest world because his actual skillset is murder and mayhem; Vindice proudly fessing up to Antonio like a cat bringing in a dead bird and getting an "arrest the fuck out of that guy" instead of gratitude is a much more satisfying ending for me, character-wise and theme-wise, than "eliminate that guy who knows too much."

[skygiants]

Hmm, you've got a point, and I do enjoy the Strangers on a Train-ness of Vindice assuming that Antonio's going to be On Board With Murder because Vindice brought it up once in a weird conversation that Antonio was not really paying attention to and was a little weirded out by, but I also really like the opportunity that playing Antonio as a darker figure offers to complicate his own portrayal of his wife and make her a more interesting presence in the text.

[skygiants]

The casting and costuming and staging were all so good! Definitely one of the best-produced pieces I've seen from this company.