• he/him

I've not gotten any good at writing descriptions since I first made my tumblr and by god I'm not about to start now.


www.in-mutual-weirdness.tumblr.com

nex3
@nex3

why won't theaters sell me films of their plays :eggbug-sob:


nex3
@nex3

the 2019 Royal Shakespeare Company Twelfth Night1 totally changed my perspective on the relationship between Cesario/Orsino/Olivia and there is absolutely no legal2 way to see it again and it's killing me


  1. fair warning if you ever get a chance to see it, the production really doesn't understand women at all, but its male characters (including Cesario) are just outstanding

  2. or illegal as far as I can tell!!!


nex3
@nex3

Okay okay since everybody1's asking, the fundamental insight that this production brings to Cesario/Orsino/Olivia is not just that Orsino is gay, but that he's specifically using his supposed overwhelming love for Olivia as a beard-in-absentia. His melodramatic melancholy makes his heterosexuality unquestionable at the same time as it's impossible to act upon, because he knows very well Olivia will never accept his suit. And then in turn it gives him an excuse to become more intimate with his male servants (Cesario especially). This then frames Cesario as very specifically a trans man, and the resolution of the play as Orsino reaping the fruits of a society whose oppression cancels itself out in this small case: he is able to be with man only because the world, and indeed the text of the play, refuses to acknowledge Cesario as a man.

I'd provide some examples of how the play is staged to emphasize this reading, but I haven't seen it since 2019 and there's no way for me to fix that :host-frown:


  1. nobody


@dismallyOriented shared with:

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @nex3's post:

i love filming and editing shows at my college i wish i could do it more but filming rights are such a pain in the ass. last time i got to do it was with an Ancient Greek tragedy where everyone who would have a claim to the copyright is long, long dead, including the translator.

in reply to @nex3's post:

There have been local theatre production for which I would gladly pay full ticket price to see again. It will never happen and is probably literally impossible. Arguably this is one of the things that makes live theatre special but it is also so aggravating in the modern documented-and-recorded era.

i recently found out there’s a whole collection of recorded plays at the new york public library that allows viewings ONLY in person and they make sure you don’t have anything on you when you go in like you’re visiting someone in prison. pure torture

in reply to @nex3's post:

Is it weird I can't find any info about a 2019 production by them? I can only find a 2017/18 one but they ostensibly sell a dvd of that so I figure that's definitely not the one you mean.