#Shakespeare adaptations

[hug-kiss-marry-kill]

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

Anything Goes December

The Taming of the Shrew / Costume for Elizabeth Taylor as Katharina Minola(?)

I'm tremendously curious about this gown. It appeared in an exhibit titled "Glamour: Famous Gowns of the Silver Screen" in Finland in 2020. FrockFlicks did a a fine writeup of the exhibit in which they dubbed this the "unicorn dress." But it doesn't appear in the actual film!

It looks like an alternate version of the wedding dress, possibly intended to make Katharina match more closely with Petruchio's outlandish multicolored costume--but that's just a guess. If it wasn't used, why was it constructed? And was it designed by Irene Sharaff, who did Elizabeth Taylor's other gowns for this film, or by Danilo Donati, who designed everyone else's costumes?

[anotherclassicpretence]

Tabu and Irrfan in Maqbool (Macbeth) dir. Vishal Bhardwaj + colour coordination

This movie has made many, many changes to the characters of the play, but they work well with the chosen backdrop of Mumbai's underworld. These two give a life to each other's presence that is sooo Lord and Lady Macbeth that it pulls off the motive of the murder being their chance to be together rather than just ambition for the "throne".

[hondacivicbrain]

I want a Muppet adaptation of Julius Caesar where Miss Piggy is Caesar and she says "et tu, Kermit?" as she dies.

[treefey]

Anything but you except when Bea realizes they're pulling a Much Ado About Nothing, she makes Ben watch the Kenneth Branagh version and that's how they fall in love and maybe she decides to do some writing or acting or something, some direction instead of just "not law school"

[glitter-stained]

Batkids play a game called "Never have you ever" where Duke gazes into their timelines in the multiverse and tells them two made-up things and one that happened in an else-word and they have to guess which is real

[adam-scott]

HAROLD PERRINEAU as Mercutio | ROMEO + JULIET (1996)

[speerfisch]

the tree where demetrius and helena meet, in my adaption of "a midsummer night's dream" by Shakespeare, 2024

[trueloveandotherscificoncepts]

And he looks good doing it

i mean for real look up other actors' deliveries of the queen mab monologue and then come back and tell me any of them did it better than harold perrineau

like most of them are just. saying the words like any other, or trying to spin a tale kind of randomly which i guess is fine and sort of establishes mercutio as being Out There, but they don't particularly characterize him as standing out that much

but harold perrineau delivers that speech like a man with some serious shit he needs to sort through, and strongly sets up the kind of character who would throw himself into a duel on impulse and scream a plague on both your houses! while dying senselessly

none of the others make mercutio so manic, so hectic, a candle so bright that it's burning itself out in a blaze of bitter glory

his mercutio is gregarious, living large, here for a good time not for a long time, living fast and dying young and boiling with energy and a kind of rage under the surface like he wants to burn the world down and let it take him with it

his is the most compelling and realistic mercutio i've ever seen

no other portrayal can compare

[hug-kiss-marry-kill]

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

October: White Redux

Richard III / Mary Kerridge as Queen Elizabeth

Hmm, black spots creeping into our white costumes again? Strange....

This costume, nice as it is, baffles me. It's a fine example of fashion from the 1300s, worn for a scene (the death of King Edward IV) that takes place in 1483. See the picture below: Jane Shore in the red and blue dress shows an example of what women were actually wearing at the time (see here for a more detailed look at that costume). The queen even wears other costumes more along those lines in other scenes. So why on earth did they choose to put her in clothing that was a hundred years or more out of date for the first part of the film? I would love to know the answer.

She's not the only one, either--one of the photos shows her walking with the Duchess of York (Helen Haye, in black), who is wearing a gown of a similar era but almost a perfect palette-swap of the queen's costume.

[sclappin]

This was part of my undergrad illustration thesis, which was illustrations to accompany the text of Shakespeare's The Tempest, repurposing aesthetics and imagery from the rural New Hampshire village where I grew up.

Reposting this piece from May 2020, because it is now available as a print, and Tumblr is being weird about letting me edit the original post to add alt text and a link.

[mervynbunter]

Imogen Stubbs and Helena Bonham Carter in TWELFTH NIGHT (dir. Trevor Nunn, 1996)

With adorations, fertile tears, With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

I’d like to propose a performance of Hamlet in which the audience is addressed, looked at, and treated as if they were there but ONLY by characters who have gone mad.

in Act 2, when Hamlet’s pretending to go mad, while in the presence of Polonius and others, he sort of pretends to look at the audience, but always glancing over, looking sort of in the wrong direction, putting on a show for the only eyes he thinks are watching. When he’s alone and doing his soliloquies, it’s clear that he’s talking to himself, even though we’re listening in.

And it continues this way until Act 3 Scene 4, when Hamlet runs Polonius through with the sword. For a moment after the deed is done, there’s a shocked silence on the stage. As Hamlet goes to examine the body, he falters, slightly, as he becomes aware of just how many eyes are on him. And slowly; he looks at us, and through the rest of the scene his attention is torn between the audience and his mother, until the ghost appears (perhaps in the audience as well) and he’s… sort of put back on track. But from then on, all his soliloquies, asides, he begins to talk to us, in the audience.

And we notice the change, sure, but we don’t really get what it means, not until Ophelia goes mad, and while onstage she begins to give audience members flowers, to talk to them as the others call her crazy. And at that point most of us can make the connection.

From then until the play is over, Hamlet can’t fully ignore us. Every other character will, and does (besides maybe the gravediggers if you wanted to include anyone else), but we’re ever present in his sight. As he dies, we’re the ones he refers to when he says ‘you that look pale and tremble at this chance, that are but mutes or audience to this act’

[aardvaark]

to be honest when i saw that sophie’s dating profile was under the alias "violet cesario" and found that it was a reference to shakespeare’s twelfth night, my first thought was "oh yeah, that play based on she’s the man (2006)". which was. not quite correct,

[muzetrigger]

Shakespeare, but in Space with Giant Robots and Sapphics!

Yes, this is about G-Witch (Spoilers incoming).

I probably this mention way too often, but I teach English, and occasionally, that means I get to teach Shakespeare too! And what better way to teach Shakespeare than with anime?

Now, if you're a fan of G-Witch, you've probably heard that it's an adaptation of The Tempest, but let's do a quick review just in case.

Miranda - The Tempest (1916), by John William Watterhouse

The Tempest is play written by William Shakespeare around 1610-1611. It's usually classified as a Tragicomedy and centers around Prospero, the former Duke of Milan.

Why former?

Well, Prospero has a brother called Antonio who collaborated with Alonso, the King of Naples, to exile Prospero and usurp his dukedom.

Why is the King of Naples handing out dukedoms in Milan despite being on the opposite end of the Italian peninsula, a region renowned for its intensely antagonistic city-states?

Because shut up. (I have no idea)

Anyway, Prospero is forced into exile on a remote island with his daughter Miranda, but years later, Alonso and Antonio happen to be on a ship passing nearby the island and Prospero shipwrecks them.

How?

Well, Prospero is a literal wizard. (This is maybe why the king agreed to exile Prospero because he was spending too much time reading instead of, y'know, governing.)

So Prospero conjures the titular tempest to wreck their ship, only he doesn't really wreck it, he just separates everyone on board for his vengeance.

See, Alonso and Antonio aren't the only ones onboard. There's also Ferdinand (Alonso's son and the Prince of Naples) and Sebastion (Alonso's brother). Prospero isolates Ferdinand then lures him to his residence on the island where he manipulates the prince into falling in love with his daughter.

Well, it's a bit more like love at first sight between Ferdinand and Miranda, so Prospero actually plays the overprotective dad role to make their relationship more satisfying, which is Prospero's real goal. By marrying the two of them, he essentially reclaims his and Miranda's noble status.

Oh, and he also lures the rest of the ship's passengers into an illusory banquet before trapping and subjecting them to hellish nightmares. Eventually, he lets them out and chides them for their betrayal before revealing that he's married Ferdinand and Miranda. Then he calls the ship back with all of its crew still alive and they get ready to return to "civilized" Italy.

One of the things that makes the ending of The Tempest interesting though is that Prospero also chooses to give up his magic when he leaves the island. Many view this as an metaphor for Shakespeare's own creative powers. After The Tempest, it's believed that Shakespeare stopped writing plays on his own, and when Prospero gives his final speech, he requests that the audience release him from the play.

Anyway, here are the characters in the play:

And here are the characters that actually matter:

Character Portraits from Classical Comics' The Tempest - The Graphic Novel (2009)

Hey, there are two other characters I haven't talked about yet!

Well, their names are Ariel and Caliban.

Sound familiar?

That's right, the Gundams in G-Witch!

In The Tempest, Ariel and Caliban are Prospero's servants. Really, they're his slaves, though Prospero treats Ariel a lot better on account of Caliban attempting to rape Miranda in the past. That being said, the island is actually Caliban's home. In fact, when Prospero and Miranda first arrived, he taught them how to survive on the island before being enslaved.

Prospero frees both Ariel and Caliban at the end of the play, but he spends much of the play alternatively strong-arming and complimenting Ariel into executing his revenge plot while Caliban plots to murder Prospero for his own revenge, forming the comedic subplot of The Tempest.

There's a lot to unpack about imperialism in The Tempest and which aspects Shakespeare reifies and criticizes in the play, but here is a very basic relationship chart to go along with this very basic summary.

SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH WITCH FROM MERCURY???

Well if we turn to the Witch from Mercury relationship chart we get:

And hmm, doesn't that fit like a glove? There are actually a ton of parallels between the two stories aside from names:

Prospera's group, the Vanadis Institute, is betrayed by Delling leading to Prospera going undercover on Mercury

Both Delling and Prospera's daughters also fall in love and get married

Suletta's school bucket list is a parallel for Miranda's fascination and excitement for a "brave, new world"

Suletta's sacrifice at the end of the series disables the local GUND format devices and mirrors Prospero giving up his magic

Vim Jeturk attempts to assassinate Delling and Sebastion attempts to kill Alonso are both supposed allies making a power grab

The GUND bit clones are eerily reminiscent of the host of spirits Prospero also controls

Gundam pilots are referred to as "witches" while Prospero is a literal wizard

Gundams are banned because they cause data storms

And the tension between Earthians and Spacians is a mirror for the exploitation and power dynamics under imperialist rule in much the same way that Prospero's control over Caliban and Ariel is

Now, obviously The Tempest and Witch from Mercury are not 1:1 stories. You may have even noticed that Delling is on the relationship chart twice.

Why?

Well, Witch from Mercury's characters often share multiple roles with their The Tempest counterparts.

Of course Delling is a stand in for both Alonso and Antonio, but we later learn that Aerial is actually Ericht Samaya, Prospera's first daughter, and that Prospera's big goal (aside from revenge) is securing Eri's future and freedom (and the big reason that Ariel goes along with Prospero's revenge plot is because he wants to be free). That makes her both an Ariel and a Miranda analogue.

Prospera is obviously a stand-in for Prospero, but she's also a reference to Sycorax, a character who never makes an appearance on stage, but is the sea witch who gives birth to Caliban and traps Ariel in a tree. Even though Prospera is scheming for Eri's freedom, she's also the person who put Eri in a Gundam frame in the first place, as well as being a Gundam pilot/Witch herself.

Miorine shares Ferdinand's place as the next in-line to a fantastically powerful position, but her relationship with her father is much closer to Miranda and Prospero, not only in terms of gender, but also in rebellion.

And Suletta is actually an amalgamation of 4+ characters!

She's Prospera's daughter and she's filled with wide-eyed wonder at exploring a new world, so she's part Miranda, but she sacrifices her "magic" at the end of the series like Prospero. On the other hand as the Holder, she has to fight for Miorine's hand in marriage to prove herself like Ferdinand does.

But most of all, Suletta is Caliban.

Obviously, Suletta pilots the Calibarn at the end of the series, but more so her character arc mirrors Caliban's.

For one, between Ericht and herself, Suletta is by far the less important of the two to Prospera, similar to how Prospero by far favors Ariel.

She's also mostly* a tool for Prospera's revenge. Of course there are a couple of nods that Prospera, and Ericht in particular, care about Suletta, but she is an Eri-clone and she was created to fulfill Prospera's designs.

But, Suletta also comes into direct conflict with her mother at the end of the series. Her motivations couldn't be any more different from Caliban's, but ultimately, she takes up arms against the person ruling her life in an attempt to reclaim some agency, and unlike Caliban she succeeds.

One of the things I really enjoy about G-Witch is that, despite it's very rushed second season, it reimagines Miranda, Ferdinand, and Caliban in much more active, influential, and sympathetic roles. They aren't just pawns in Prospera's schemes; they have their own agendas and are willing to step far out of line with their inspirations in order to achieve them.

I could also talk about how Miorine and Suletta are more fully realized Anthy and Utena's because guess what?

G-Witch is also a Revolutionary Girl Utena adaptation!

But that's a separate post I need to write.

Coming soon!*

*probably never

So for everyone who thinks that Shakespeare is just a collection of forsooth's and weird toxic romance, I raise you Giant Robot Space Lesbians* (they're actually bi don't @me)