#clearly for the same audience tho this one is perhaps further (okay much further) down the iceberg

[get-back-homeward]

Stage Play: My Old Friend

i've been here more than 2 years now and gone deep into the tags a decade back. but i've never seen anything about Two of Us 2.0: My Old Friend, a stage play by Stephen Larsen imagining a final meeting with John and Paul on November 5, 1980.

here's the summary:

The play begins on November 5, 1980. John Lennon, alone in his apartment at the Dakota in New York City, is at a crossroads. He has been having recurring dreams of death and is ready to make big changes in his life, that is if he can summon up the courage. Just then, who should appear, unannounced at his door but Paul McCartney.  The two haven't seen each other for about four years.  John is both glad and a bit wary at the sudden appearance of his old friend.  Can they mend fences? Can they come together? Or they forever doomed to be bound by the strands and complications of their shared history?

here’s a copy of the script.

it packs a lot of bug lore into a few acts (probably too much for a general audience) and leans a bit exposition heavy to fit it into J&P conversation (assumes they haven’t talked most of the decade but then they start bearing souls). the dialogue is an acquired taste, and it commits the Two of Us sin of making paul more normal for the sake of plot and using him to talk through to john. it also leans into very dark territory by the end (tarot reading with jayne mansfield among other things), which is probably tough even for devoted fans.

but it notably features some very J&P moments complete with goons humor, spontaneous bursting into song, and wild tonal shifts that are very them. it's funny then that the most authentic bits are the ones that make me doubt it could ever be adapted right to the stage. at least not without a devoted group producing it.

would have made a good fanfic though. it's especially poignant after Now and Then's release, even if i am a bit skeptical about the timelines (the idea john and paul didn't see each other for 4 years, that the fall 1980 meeting was out of the blue, time of writing Now and Then, etc.). with the biopics back in discussion, it's worth taking another look at it.

this script was read onstage in holmdel, new jersey in 2018. did anyone attend the script reading?

more importantly, has anything been done with it since?

[raquellmurillo]

I totally agree with you. They made it looked like Raquel is just a hindrance on the plans of Professor. Without her, the story most likely will just stay the same. So much hateee. Raquel can do better!!! Where the fuck is Raquel Murillo!!!!

Didn’t they just???

Apart from all the problematic issues with her being involved in the heist... they really made her the hindrance.

Firstly, I don’t understand the whole point of them not being in Madrid. Because, Sergio had to be there in s1&2, just in case things went wrong, especially with cars, evidence, ya know all the little bits. I understand there are no protocols to check outside a given area... wouldn’t it make more sense to play it the other way around? To make police think they’re in, say, Barcelona, “because there are no protocols to check outside given area”; which would make the police think they’re really clever, as they’ve figured out that the professor is trying to base himself elsewhere. Why not have Marsella riding that bike around another large city....?

Because you see, I’d understand if that actually was a crucial part; they could by no means be in Madrid... but all of s4 was based in Madrid, yet no one bothered to look there (well apart from Alicia who tracked him from cctv cameras.... like give this woman a raise! But that would also assume Sergio is stupid enough to drive straight to his “secret hideout”, rather than leave the car say a few streets away and walking........ he is really down to his last brain cell, isn’t he??? Or the writers are lmao) so it seems a bit pointless to be as far away from the heist, especially, since like, Sergio hasn’t been caught in Madrid (well by the teams of thousands looking for him, since now they’ve even got a trail to follow) and as this amazing technique of being further away got them caught a lot faster? Wouldn’t it be better to start off in Madrid and run if they got caught there? Still being able to direct the heist but not from the comfort of a nearby location? Didn’t it sorta look like they were trying to catch them? 

It leaves a few plot holes, ya know... the whole epicenter plan (oh I was perhaps distracted when first hearing it lmaoo ;D) ---- that assumes they’re caught in a forest tho (?) - what if the got tracked an hour before on the beach...??? It seemed the plot was written for the action, rather than the action for the plot - all the things that were planned in s1&2 were only for inside the mint (!!!!) and all the things outside of the heist - the really stressful bits of Sergio threatening Russians etc. - were improvised, because they were fully aware that otherwise it would seem so unnatural; they weren’t protocol things that could be planned or predicted. I know now things have changed etc. but this amazing idea with the location was meant to solve all their issues. The plan of ‘in case they got caught’ was so ugh because it was clearly not written as a response to the situation, but almost in order to cause the situation. It would have made more sense to not have the epicenter plan, as it would’ve looked as if they didn’t expect to be caught in the middle of a forest lmao Sergio is a genius of improvisation, not a psychic (!!!!) It would have been amazing if they were in that ambulance and Sergio was like “think, think, think; a tree!! omg we gonna fool them wifey”. Not.... a few months before; “they’re not gonna catch us...... but if they do, it’ll defo be in a forest - I can sense it!!” --- plan epicenter on the beach --- “okay Raquel, you’re gonna bury yourself in the sand and hope the dogs don’t dig you up”; I mean, they couldn’t have predicted that, which made it so obvious (now looking back) that they planned Raquel to be a hindrance, rather than something actually going wrong causing a genuine, unplanned, improvised reaction (...not to mention --- let her climb the motherfucking tree, you cowards!!!!!) Nah, but seriously, it looked as if the only thing that Sergio calculated was that she would be a hindrance lmaooo 

So, the million dollar question; why not keep them locked up in that abandoned warehouse whilst Marsella flies from one city to another confusing the police? Because the implications of Sergio happily doing all the shit from his secret non moving base in Madrid, are that the police aren’t able to track him. At all. Despite still negotiating? Even without having Marsella cycling around all the time. Also despite having constant gatherings of Serbian, I assume, criminals, mafia.... Imagine if the police is tracking one of the people Sergio hires anyhow, for like, idk drug trafficking- and they break into Sergio’s hide out thinking they’ve managed to find some drug den.... but to their disappointment it’s just Sergio lmao

The point being, I think they wanted to write it for action rather than plot. Having Raquel and Sergio back in a s1&2 type set up, could possibly be seen as repetitive, viewer wise.... WHich I think is just laziness; they’d have to write some conflict scenes, delve into more detail. We only got, what, one, two scenes of Raquel and Sergio both negotiating.... wouldn’t it have been more fun to continue this? Have Alicia slide in more and more personal details of Raquel’s life; legit doing her tent interview with Raquel over the phone? Imagine her calling him a nut job, saying something like, “he could’ve been trying to kill your family for all you know...” and Raquel just rolling her eyes and hanging up ---- to see a very very distressed Sergio lmaooo 

I know they’re the lead couple but let’s not be afraid of well written conflict, for the sake of sorting some shit out -- I love them, but for the sake of poor Raquel, let them be together as they are, not as what they think they are. Let’s forget about the glory for a second. In s1&2 everyone loved them because they were able to overcome the fact that they’re on different sides; this time, instead of writing them as madly in love, let’s take a step to tackle them as characters who make their bond stronger by accepting their weaknesses ~ give Sergio his ‘Imma kill this old woman and man who just woke up from a coma to make sure they don’t fuck up the plan’ attitude back; Gandia should be dead! The rule was ‘no killing of innocent kids so the public opinion doesn’t push the police to enter’, not ‘let’s not kill this guy who is a government trained assassin so amnesty international considers me as their next president’ lmaooo PLS let them be themselves, and MAKE them deal with them ‘being themselves’. Raquel is the goodie goodie and Sergio is the wanna be goodie goodie - or goodie for the show - Make him make some radical decisions; make Raquel question them; MAKE her be his voice of reason. (like in s3, when she questioned the Rio/Tokyo thing; that one argument was as far as they were willing to take it, but at least they tried). Make an interesting conflict by making Alicia try to prove to Raquel, that Sergio is who he is, and Sergio not doing anything in his favour to prove the contrary. Make Raquel realise that there is a lot of truth in what Alicia is saying; if she is going to love him, it should depend on her making this informed decision of loving him as he is. 

Instead of one big argument, gradually build it up. It seemed like they wanted to shove everything into that scene; little by little, and lets not get them all so upset and shout some dramatic lines at each other ya know. Instead of the “I thought we were in love...” -- my wonderful negotiator wouldn't go there omg, let her @@@@ himmm; “shut the fuck up, you ain’t gonna get anywhere with those umbrella statements, because tell me again, what did you beat me at?”, “Didn’t tell me to come along??? Well, you didn’t fucking stop me either.”, “Now, we’ve reached the conclusion that I beat you and you didn’t give enough of a shit about me to stop me from coming as vengeance was so much more important you didn’t think you could lose your new family; go the fuck back in and tell Tokyo to not fucking do that to the boy.” LETS NOT BE AFRAID OF MAKING SERGIO THE BAD GUY AND HAVE RAQUEL PUT HIM IN HIS PLACE. Like she put the people in the police tent in their place, a countless amount of times, especially in terms of her ex etc. The “you’re my first love” thing was cute, but it seemed like throwing words at the wind and turning the issue around; “you’re right, I’m sorry, I was so obsessed thinking about my brother I didn’t realise how much I was hurting you, you’re right about the whole Tokyo thing too” etc..... constructive relationship building; apologising for the actual thing, rather than avoiding a conversation about it and blaming ones behavior on ‘being new to the situation’ (that’s a red flag, no? A lil.....) character progress, still having fierce Raquel who isn’t just gonna let Sergio put her down like that, considering she is risking her life for him, meaning she ought to get some say........

Because the lines Alicia says have a lot of truth in them, especially for an audience who is aware of everything; Raquel denying them or saying some stupid comments really makes her seem idk sometimes even stupid. Like babe, he was going to kill your mother and best friend and now he is risking your life, shut the fuck up. Of course, it is not in bad intention, but Sergio’s manner of loving is a very selfish one. Let her acknowledge this. Don’t be afraid of writing her as a strong character who isn’t afraid of loving someone despite their flaws, because deep down she knows he loves her, and it’s okay for it not to be perfect. Because not allowing her to see this, makes her seem like she is so blindly in love with him; it really fucks up the characterisation. 

... because without this, she is stripped of her very strong characterisation, and simply reduced to a love interest. But the show seems so be so fucking in love with the professor they are afraid to give him this edge he had before. Because sorting Raquel’s character out would require them to write Sergio as the maniac obsessed with his plan rather than the next president of Amnesty International lmao  

I had another three paragraphs about the plan etc. but imma put them in a different ask, so enjoy this wonderful Milan Kundera quote instead; 

“Love is by definition an unmerited gift; being loved without meriting it is the very proof of real love. If a woman tells me: I love you because you're intelligent, because you're decent, because you buy me gifts, because you don't chase women, because you do the dishes, then I'm disappointed; such love seems a rather self-interested business. How much finer it is to hear: I'm crazy about you even though you're neither intelligent nor decent, even though you're a liar, an egotist, a bastard.”