30 Days of Shakespeare, Day 12

[lareinenoire]

Day #12: Your favourite scene

Damn you, meme, how dare you make me choose? I will arbitrarily narrow it down to...five. Okay, five. In no particular order.



Richard III Act IV, Scene IV - If this is in any way surprising to anybody, I have no idea what to say. Too many productions cut this scene down because it is ridiculously long. I get that. But it is also AWESOME. Granted, that completely depends on how good your women are -- the Awful Student Production, for instance, completely ruined it because the director clearly had no idea how to direct women. But when it's done well, this scene is all about the weight of history and memory and how, no matter how many people you kill, you can't outrun who you are. Also, it has Elizabeth Grey pwning Richard of Gloucester, and that is always brilliant.

The 1995 film with Ian McKellen and Annette Bening (also with bonus Maggie Smith as the Duchess of York!) - Even though this version excised Margaret altogether, thereby getting rid of the first half of the scene, the interaction between McKellen's Richard and Bening's Elizabeth is just phenomenal. Also, the Duchess does pick up a few of Margaret's missing lines and you absolutely cannot go wrong with Maggie Smith.

The 1990 ESC Cycle, dir. Michael Bogdanov - All the women here are excellent (the one sour note in this production is the actress playing Anne, who has died by this point), and Andrew Jarvis is a really interesting Richard.

Othello Act III, Scene III - This is the scene on which the entire plot of Othello hinges. At the beginning, Othello is a confident general madly in love with his wife. By the end, we have this:

Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil.

It's just magnificently horrible. Iago just has to plant the seed, and Othello creates his own nightmarish universe where his wife has never been faithful to him, has never loved him, and his own sense of self is completely shattered.

Much Ado About Nothing Act IV, Scene I - Well, technically, this is only part of a scene, but the conversation between Beatrice and Benedick at the end is so full of wit and rage and utter love. He clearly adores her; she's clearly ready to kill Claudio for wronging her beloved cousin, but feels enough for him to test him, to see if he's really the man she thinks he might be.

Henry VI, Part III Act III, Scene II - Not only is this the first appearance of Elizabeth Grey, it's also got Richard of Gloucester's first, brilliant monologue. Before this point, Richard has been bloodthirsty, but content to stay in the shadow of his father (even if he jockeys for position with his brothers), and it is in this one speech that we first see the Richard we know and love.


ETA: So, angevin2 had the brilliant idea of posting bits from various productions that are up on YouTube. I am attempting to edit this post accordingly, so watch this space if you're interested!


Day #1: Your favourite play - Othello and Richard III
Day #2: Your favourite character - Lady Elizabeth Grey in 3 Henry VI and Richard III
Day #3: Your favourite hero - Othello
Day #4: Your favourite heroine - Juliet from Romeo and Juliet and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing
Day #5: Your favorite villain - Richard of Gloucester
Day #6: Your favourite villainess female villain - Joan la Pucelle
Day #7: Your favourite clown - Feste from Twelfth Night
Day #8: Your favourite comedy - Much Ado About Nothing
Day #9: Your favourite tragedy - King Lear
Day #10: Your favourite history - The Henry VI trilogy
Day #11: Your least favourite play - The Taming of the Shrew
Day #12: Your favourite scene
Day #13: Your favourite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favourite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favourite speech
Day #18: Your favourite dialogue
Day #19: Your favourite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favourite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favourite couple
Day #27: Your favourite couplet
Day #28: Your favourite joke
Day #29: Your favourite sonnet
Day #30: Your favourite single line

Comments

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

... great, now I want an Othello AU set in the universe of Inception.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

::FLAIL:: OMG YES WANT. SO MUCH.

I have no idea how someone would go about writing that, but EEEEEK!

(Although I did write a scene once where a character was tempted by the Devil quoting Iago.)

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

Well--it would have Othello, Iago, Cassio, and Desdemona sent to Cyprus in order to investigate the governor's ties to the Turks; Cassio is the Architect, so whatever Othello sees in the dream, he thinks Cassio has built there. But Iago has hacked the architecture to graft a second dream onto this dream--not a dream within a dream, but a sort of auxiliary logic engine that, with the right set of actions in place, begins to replace the logic of the dream that Cassio's built ... with a logic of reality. Othello has to determine which is the real dream, the false dream, and reality--before he is driven to kill his own wife.

(Why did I not do something like that? I write Brothers Karamazov fic. I should have done something like that.)

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I really, really want to read this now. ::makes puppy eyes::

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

XD XD I'll see what I can do.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

You are a wonderful person for indulging me. ;)

[jehane18.livejournal.com]

OMG, yes. This is the only way this brilliant, dastardly play makes any sense whatsoever. (Sorry, Kavita, but of all the Bard's tragedies, this is the trainwreck that makes me rage the most - helplessly at everyone's sheer stupidity :))

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, it makes me full of rage even though I love it as a work of literature. It just makes you want to scream! (Although Lear has a similar effect on me.)

[jehane18.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Lear makes me want to scream, too! It's just Othello, as you say, is so especially beautiful, and the man is so monumentally filled with pride and self-doubt and stupidity, and that he can't see his way clear to not killing the woman he loves - it's almost unendurable! AUGH. Gil's auxilary logic engine scenario makes much more sense, and I am thrilled you seem to have cajoled her into writing it. :)

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

::grins evilly:: I love it when a good plan comes together. Especially when it involves fic I wouldn't be able to write, myself. :)

It probably speaks to my masochistic tendencies that I adore Othello precisely because it hurts me so much. Hamlet is a wonderful play, but it just doesn't make me ache the same way.