(no subject)

[skygiants]

We watched "The Prince," a filmed play airing on nebula.tv, because my friend kept getting incredibly targeted advertisements announcing that the show was full of "sword fighting, lesbianism, Hamlet, and disappointed parents."

All of this is true but also very funny as an advertising ploy because the entire first act is a Rosencrantz-and-Guildensternish riff on Henry IV: Part 1. "This is great," we said, during intermission, "we are having a wonderful time, but was Hamlet a lie? Did they think that Henry IV was not popular enough to be worth advertising or did they just get their H-plays mixed up?"

Anyway: The Prince is a Rosencrantz-and-Guildensternish riff on Henry IV: Part I, in which two trans women trapped in the bit parts attempt to stumble their way through the background of the play to extratheatrical freedom, struggling along the way with how much they can or should attempt to rescue the main players from the roles in which they are likewise trapped (with a heavy emphasis on gender and masculinity). The broader metaphor is not necessarily subtle but it's extremely well done -- Abigail Thorn, the author, has a great ear for Shakespearian rhythm and I often had a truly difficult time distinguishing the exact moments where the play slides back off Shakespeare's tracks and onto its own (though it's also been a long time since I've encountered a Henry IV so my memory for what exactly happens in it is not as clear.) And whenever the show did jump onto scenes/monologues/etc that I knew well, I was consistently impressed with the way that it situated and reframed them within its particular contexts to make them its own; it's the kind of riff you can only do when you're really deeply immersed in a text, with enough knowledge and affection to claim full ownership of it.

This play has a really strong and compelling read on its two Harrys -- quite different from how I usually see them played but I thought it worked really well. (The Kate thread didn't work for me quite as well, and felt a little like it was falling back on easier tropes, but that may just be personal preference on Kates and Kate-and-Harrys.)

I also want to do a shout-out to the costuming, which used small details extremely well and was constantly changing in delightful ways.

You can watch a trailer for the show here -- I actually only just now watched it myself while writing this post and was kind of surprised at how extremely dramatic it was! The play is also funny ... there's a plot-significant Diet Coke bottle that was personally delightful to me ....

(Okay, one other small complaint -- there's a lot of thematic emphasis put on metered dialogue as representative of narrative constraint and Shakespeare does not always use metered dialogue! Sometimes his characters talk in prose! It's fine, I trust that Abigail Thorn knows this too and is choosing to ignore it to make her point, but the nits gotta be picked.)

Comments

[aella_irene]

So, was Hamlet a lie?

[skygiants]

They did eventually do some Hamlet but the percentage of Hamlet to Harry is NOT high.

[chestnut_pod]

A fresh read on the Harries is a rare thing! This sounds super fun.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I thought it was such an interesting choice to use the Harries as the primary focal point to talk about gender out of all of Shakespeare -- like clearly a very deliberate call to just dodge right round the comedies and head straight towards Hotspur as Tragedy of Masculine Performance. I love it when a show makes a confident argument!

[sovay]

This play has a really strong and compelling read on its two Harrys -- quite different from how I usually see them played but I thought it worked really well.

How so?

[skygiants]

Because the play is using Harry and Hotspur to reflect on various modes of being trapped in masculine gender performance, it's not just writing queerness into the performances but really emphasizing the vulnerability in both of them beyond what I usually see. Falstaff isn't present in this play, so you don't get the sharp counterpoint of Harry's power and frequent cruelty there, just a very specific lens on his failures; this is not a Harry who's playacting the disappointment as part of a grand plan, but a Harry who is coming to the grim realization that he's going to have to kill the most important parts of himself to become the person he's expected to be, as Hotspur already has -- for Hotspur, the broad overwhelming approval of the way in which she performs masculinity is as much or more of a trap as the disappointment is for Harry.

(Also, the play ships it. This isn't new, obviously people do ship it, but it's very pointed!)

[sovay]

this is not a Harry who's playacting the disappointment as part of a grand plan, but a Harry who is coming to the grim realization that he's going to have to kill the most important parts of himself to become the person he's expected to be, as Hotspur already has -- for Hotspur, the broad overwhelming approval of the way in which she performs masculinity is as much or more of a trap as the disappointment is for Harry.

That sounds great.

[larryhammer]

It does!

[skygiants]

It's definitely the most I've ever liked Harry!

[rydra_wong]

I'm so excited to hear that it got filmed, having missed my chance to see it in the theatre!

[skygiants]

The filmed version is fantastic! Really fun and dynamic to watch.

[kore]

Oh, this sounds neat!

[skygiants]

We had a great time with it!

[merelydovely]

It's really great to hear this was actually good—I'm a fan of Abigail Thorn as a YouTuber, but had essentially no idea what I'd think of her as a stage actress, and she's enough of a microcelebrity that it was hard to know if the accolades for The Prince were down to her fanbase or down to it actually being good.

[bloodygranuaile]

Same; I have been somewhat avoiding learning anything specific about The Prince beyond "It's one of Abigail Thorn's other projects" but now I think I will watch it!

[skygiants]

All four of us watching were almost entirely unfamiliar with Abigail Thorn and stumbled over this experience only via the very appropriately targeted advertising, lol. A fortuitous discovery!

[bloodygranuaile]

I hope you all enjoy Philosophy Tube as much as my girlfriend and I enjoyed The Prince, which we ended up watching Saturday evening!

[skygiants]

I had absolutely no idea that the creator of the show & actress playing Hotspur was Abigail Thorn, a microcelebrity of whom I had only ever very vaguely heard, until I went to go look up information about it all after the fact. She was great!

[reconditarmonia]

Oh my god?? How did I not know about this? Thank you for making me know about this.

[skygiants]

You're so welcome, I extremely hope you enjoy it if you watch!

[sophia_sol]

Fascinating, I love to read a review of this play since I only know Abigail Thorne from her youtube content! I adore her as a youtuber (HIGH DRAMA BISEXUAL) but was unsure what her play would actually be like to watch, and this sounds GREAT.