#dogberry & verges

[onesingulartheaterkid]

I am so utterly convinced that Dogberry and Verges got each other into LSD in the 1960s.

[measuresderepo]

Shakespeare girlies know the hype of getting your dream role in MAAN.

Shakespeare girlies know Verges, the dummy helping the dummy (aka Dogberry.)

But Shakespeare girlies do not understand the feeling of me getting Verges in my school play.

[violivs]

NMTDaily: We Are The Watch and The Game is Afoot(ball)

- Doing the first two Dogberry & Verges episodes in one post. They’re always the characters I care about the least in any version of Much Ado, but these two are so cute I can’t help but love them.

- I totally forgot their videos are all posted on Ursula’s Watch Projects channel! I definitely somehow developed the incorrect memory of them having their own channel because they have orange borders on their thumbnails and every other new thumbnail color so far has heralded a new channel.

- Someone in the comments called Dogberry & Verges “Sherlock and Brittany S. Pierce,” and I will never recover from the sheer brilliance of that call. Verges definitely has Brittany energy.

- They’re very cute, arguing about what kinds of cases they’ll take. Do we ever find out whose cat Tibbles is? I bet she’s Dogberry’s cat and she got out when he left the door open too long.

- The malapropisms and exaggerated speech are so perfect though. It takes skill to write (and act!) two characters who are so wrong in every big fancy word choice and yet so convinced they’re right, who take their detective work SO seriously even though no one else does. And making them two kids playing at a detective agency. What great adaptations of these characters from the play.

- I think we already got the famous line “my mom says I have to wear the suspenders to keep the Devil from infiltrating me” in Vox Pops if I’m not mistaken, but I forgot to talk about it. Do we think Verges’ mom is crazy religious so Verges hides out at Dogberry’s house to get away from her? I love their friendship but the idea of Verges feeling unsafe at home makes me sad.

- “We are The Watch. And we are Watching!” *staring awkwardly*

- The kazoo Sherlock theme!!!! I genuinely almost forgot about that. Comedy gold. I love it. And I love that D&v definitely recorded that together (with Ursula’s help). I was wondering whether the Kazoo player was Dogberry and then the accompaniment of the second kazoo started and I cracked up imagining Verges very seriously chiming in to play her part. On kazoo. Amazing.

- “The ginger nuts you will find in your bag are from us” Perfect unhinged yet thoughtful energy. I know this video description is addressed to Ursula, but I have a strange urge to check my own bag, as though D&v have reached across ten years and thousands of miles to somehow leave ME ginger nuts. Mysterious.

- Starting “The Game is Afoot(ball)” now. I love how many angles we get on this same scene at the game. Reminds me of a future scene we get multiple angles on, except that scene we get D&v scrambled footage first and are left to frantically piece together what’s happening…

- Okay, I had to pause the video to die a little at Verges saying “masturbation” instead of “mastication” when talking about the muffins. I cannot believe they snuck that in lol. I want to cover Verges’ ears even though she doesn’t know what she’s saying! Cringing so hard for her right now.

- “We are going to interview civilizations!” Love that line lol

- So the first game of the season is a rematch with the team Messina was forced to forfeit last year’s championship or whatever to because the fire alarm was mysteriously pulled. Wild how Dogberry & Verges are actually giving us Important Backstory here.

- “what does that have to do with soccer” GASP! Why did that girl say “soccer”? She’s not American! Huh??? (This may be copy editor brain wondering whether I try really hard to get terminology right in my fanfics for nothing…)

- Does Pedro/Peter know that John pulled the fire alarm? It seems like everyone else does. It makes you wonder why he’s so surprised that John hates him enough to do what he does later on. I guess he’s just in denial of how bad things really are between them.

- We get shown exactly how bad things are between the Donaldsons with Pedro’s snippy “HALF-brother” comment and the way he slaps the car keys into John’s hand in that little moment we see between them. All is not well in the house of Donaldson. And at this point, we only know that because of Dogberry and Verges’ videos. It’s amazing how everything is important in its own way in this show.

- Pedro must be so eager to publicly distance himself from John with the half-brother comment both because he begrudged John’s arrival making his family life tough for a while, but also because other kids at school think John’s weird and Pedro, however unconsciously, doesn’t want him to tarnish his image. At least he does seem to feel bad about the little tiff over the keys.

- You also have to feel for John, because Pedro making comments like that publicly means that the whole community knows all of John’s personal business and probably whispers about his parentage, and he knows that they all know. It has to be very lonely to be John. And Pedro is doing the opposite of making things easier for him. It all must have been hard on Pedro too, their family being so talked about, and he’s also just a kid, but it’s still a huge dick move on his part to treat John that way.

- “John owned up to it” says Claudio, so everyone does know, so Pedro must know that John sabotaged the game. He just doesn’t understand it as an act of sabotage against him specifically, which is clearly what it was. He picked the most important game of the season because it would hurt Pedro most to have ruined, more than any other game. (And Robbie helps John pull the fire alarm because *he*, Robbie, wants revenge against Claudio for ‘stealing’ his spot as goalie, so he ruins Claudio’s first ever game).

- Ooh Ben is walking away with the group and does not have his green uniform shirt with him, so he did leave it on the ground in front of Beatrice! Do we think she really took it home to give back to him at school? Or did it end up in the lost and found? Not that we ever see another game, but he would need it back. Oh, maybe Bea gave it to Leo to give back to Ben, without telling him who left it there so he and Hero wouldn’t have more ammo to tease her about Ben. Analyzing incredibly minor details is fun!

- I also adore that Benedick apparently named this video by making a “the game is afoot-ball” pun when talking to Dogberry and Verges. Interesting that there’s so little footage of Ben in this video- did they interview him in this scene at all? Or did he name the video when he and D&V were all over at Ursula’s house getting editing help with their new vlogs? Either way, love this random little Ben-related detail.

- Also, you hear a lot of Ben being described as all limbs, but watching him walk away in the background here? Jesus, the boy is TRULY all limbs. Look at him! Flailing around. Playing catch with Balth, establishing them as friends. I am… like, still ALARMINGLY obsessed with this character, my god. I was just trying to see if we could hear what the group walking away were saying, I swear, lol.

- The blond guy who was standing with Balthazar in Balth’s clip in this video: Surf-Lifesaving Tony? Other Tony? Damien???

- “Exit stage right!” “It’s left, you moron!” Adieu for now, readers!

💖🦩🥭

[mortaljortlebortles]

[jowritesfanfiction]

Back at it again with my favorite idiots.

[paladinclerics]

thinking forever about byler much ado about nothing au

[flutishly]

There's something so real about a lot of these early NMTD videos that even the best of other webseries never quite captured. Maybe it's the range of styles between 4-5 different vloggers (so far we've had Beatrice, Ursula, Benedick, Hero, and Dogberry/Verges). Bea is engaging, snarky, and direct, confidently ready to film herself. Hero is cheerfully sweet and feels wonderfully tuned to the camera and her own style. Ben is a bit awkward and strange and so ready to have a relationship with viewers, without much experience to back it up. Ursula is predominantly behind the camera and seeks to film art as she sees it. Dogberry and Verges have a crappy camera and no sense for filming or vlogging, but so much passion.

The episodes leading up to PROJECT II - ONE SHOT all feel remarkably distinct and unrelated. Yes, these characters are clearly interconnected (seen in VOX POPS through Ursula's storytelling, but also with the linked scenes in "Football Antics" and the Watch's video), but their vlogs are just... different and unrelated. And best of all, they have such different filming, editing, and storytelling styles. They really feel like they're coming from different characters. And there's no clear narrative! What's the story? Is it just a bunch of vlogs from some high school kids circa 2014?

I love ONE SHOT partly because of how it's shot and all (it's great!!), but also... it's just such a COOL way to show off how so many of these threads do fit together. There's an almost-effortless naturalness to how ONE SHOT shows these teens being silly, arguing, and having fun. It's lovely. It's different. It feels so real, so unscripted, so natural.

At this stage, it's so easy to question what Nothing Much to Do is even about. If you don't know the plot of Much Ado About Nothing, I don't think there's any easy way to guess how this story is playing out. And I love that the naturalness of the different filming styles can really make it seem like, no, there's no overarching narrative, there are just a bunch of kids making silly Youtube videos (as was decently common at the time) and having fun online and sharing about their lives. Drama? What drama? (We're in a Shakespeare comedy, aren't we??)

[2nd-mushroom-circle]

just watched a production of much ado where verges was dogberry’s sock puppet. highlights include:

- verges sneaking up and startling the Watch on his lines

- dogberry frequently shushing the sock puppet, who was much louder than him

- making the last point funnier, dogberry was very obviously the one speaking for all their lines. no attempt at ventriloquism

- dogberry, about his sock puppet: “an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, god help, i would desire they were, but in faith, honest as the skin between his brows” leonato: … sure.

- ursula just. stared at them for a second. when she came to call leonato in to the wedding

- in the trial scene, verges wore a little judge’s wig. no one else, including the judge, wore a wig

- when he called Dogberry an ass, conrad ripped the sock puppet off his hand

- the “i am a wise fellow, and what is more an officer” speech morphed into a eulogy for the verges puppet (“and one that hath had losses!”)

- the puppet was resurrected by the end of the scene

- don pedro: “constable -” dogberry, whispering: “constables. two of us”

- when leonato thanked them at the end of the play, and says “there’s for thy pains,” he tied his handkerchief around verges like a babushka

also bonus:

- borachio being so drunk he started acting as one of the watchmen and shepherding conrad around

[cardboardsean]

i do think the watch upload is a really smart move to justify uploading more footage of the party. ursula refers to other uploads to facebook etc in her description, and the descriptions are important if you want the full nmtd experience, but it's so hard to justify putting it up, and i think having the audience see a chaotic presentation previously really helps (not that the watch is particularly anti hero).

it's obvious why dogberry and verges would put it up; they're just after the truth, a 'solution' to their mystery, and they pick some of the most incriminating moments (claudio's accusation, meg slapping robbie, john's smirk), but it's so contextless that ursula publishing her video immediately after (even though it's been a week since the party) seems way less rash than it could be

[granma-sweetie]

hold on wait please tell me there are other fans of taskmaster that r also fucking shakespeare nerds because am i literally insane in the head or is dogberry and verges not so greg and alex in another life or whatever.

[iamstandingwater]

I'm bored so here are some much ado characters and if I could take them in a fight

Beatrice: god no absolutely not that woman could step on me and I'd thank her

Benedick: yeah. I'd mention Beatrice's name and he'd be so distracted ranting about her that I'd win easily. Also I love him but he does need someone to smack him at least once

Hero: Probably not if she actually tried. Girl should have decked Claudio when she had the chance though.

Claudio: yes. Please let me fight this man. Please.

Don John: this one is 50/50. I feel like he'd fight dirty but also I'd have the anger advantage so who knows

Don Pedro: again with the anger advantage thing. I mean there's his extensive military experience. But this man probably has more of an honour code or something so I could exploit that.

Leonato: I'd drop kick that old man. Tf you mean you wish Hero had never been born?? Square tf up

Antonio: I wouldn't want to but I probably could. He's old and not particularly bright either. Respect him for taking Hero's side though

Margaret: absolutely not. I'd perish. She could genuinely kill me.

Dogberry+Verges: Separately? Yeah. Together? No, their combined clown power would overwhelm me

[onesingulartheaterkid]

quotes from rehearsal

Verges: The bell doesn’t dismiss you, I do. 

Dogberry: The Dogberry Mindset

~~~

Director: Antonio’s like your father figure

Beatrice: no…

~~~

Director: Grab someone and kiss them! The war’s over!

(Don Pedro grabs Benedick)

~~~

Borachio: I still have weapons?

Antonio: Not after me you won’t. 

~~~

Director to Don John: You, be more depressed.

~~~

Watch to Verges: He’s your service dog Dogberry! 

~~~

Don Pedro: (starts singing)

Director: Oh shut up! Nobody cares about you.

~~~

Antonio: I haven’t done anything wrong!

Director: Besides beating up people in the alleyway. 

Antonio: That was one time!

[perrylemon]

I’ve been thinking for ages about the poets having their own Shakespeare company and performing (with the help of keating of course) but ,as it might be obvious, Much Ado About Nothing is my second favourite Shakespeare play ever (second only to Macbeth!) so I have come up with a crossover that’s either them performing it or a real cross over. I haven’t decided yet hehe. (I have not included the girls in this one but Ginny would be Margret as she is Neil’s bestie)

I’m meant to be writing a 5000 word for essay right now, oh well.

BUT cast!!

Charlie and Cameron as our favourite couple of verbal duelling idiots to lovers. Charlie as Beatrice and Cameron as Benedick. I think this is perfect! And this would tie into their closeness with Neil and Todd. Who you might have guessed are Hero and Claudio.

Neil as Hero and Todd as Claudio, here me out on this one lads! I know RSL has obviously played Claudio but I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. Importantly!! Jeffery Anderson as Don John, which would explain why Todd would EVER believe it as he’s being manipulated by his brother and Neil knows this and during the wedding scene looks over to Jeffery and realises that he’s deceived Todd against him.

Charlie saying kill Claudio and catching Neil when he faints ahendjekekjajwnhe

NOW time for funny because that’s enough angst.

Meeks as Verges and Pitts as Dogberry. Dogberry can’t count so that would be hilarious!

Chad as Borachio and his friends sharing the lines of Conrade.

Keating would be the level headed Antonio and OBVIOUSLY if Neil is Hero then Thomas Perry has to be Leonato! McAllister as the Friar.

And finally our boy Stick as Margret.

Neil and Charlie would plan the whole wedding together and Neil would wear a white suit with a lace and beaded shirt with a small flower on his suit that represents innocence (I don’t know flower language I’m sorry!)

Ah! Shakespeare and Dead Poets Society brainrot

[violivs]

NMTDaily: Watching 101

This particular liveblog post has spoilers for the rest of the plot of NMTD. It’s a short one, but I’ll put it under a cut for first-time watchers to avoid it.

- Dogberry and Verges are sweet but ineffectual yet again. Dogberry is actually right about the importance of filming to gather evidence. They already have some right here, without knowing it.

- Their enthusiasm for detective work and constant malapropisms are still awfully endearing and a clever adaptation from the play.

- We get a tiny snippet of plot-significant dialogue:

Cora: “But what will they think of Hero?”

John: “That doesn’t concern me.”

- This dialogue is happening before Pedro’s costume party, which means the plan John and Cora are discussing here is the plan to make Claudio think that Pedro has “stolen” Hero from him by romancing her for himself when he was just supposed to tell Hero that Claudio likes her.

- What’s interesting about this is that in the fallout of this plan, no one does think badly of Hero. No one blames her for the confusion and no one really thinks she was two-timing the boys. So John was right in this instance- his plan posed no risk to Hero in the end.

- This is why John was so certain that Operation Make Claudio Believe Hero’s Sleeping With Robbie would have zero effect on Hero’s reputation and happiness. Because he already meddled in her love life for his own ends once, and she came away unscathed. So he figures, no way will this next plan harm her. He genuinely is caught by surprise later on when he realizes how badly his scheming hurt her the second time. This makes John extremely naive about how the world treats women in relationship matters, but still, his remorse and shock is genuine.

- It really also hammers home how John’s plans could all be avoided if people just talked to each other and trusted each other. And how if you’re trying to arrange your nemeses’ downfall, you shouldn’t do it in a public courtyard where you can be overheard.

- Also, wait, Verges says John and Cora are seniors. Does that just mean “upperclassmen” in NZ/Aotearoa, as opposed to meaning “in their final year of high school”? Because I thought John was younger than Pedro by at least a year. Are they both Year 13s? Confusing.

💖🥭🦩

[socialshakespeare]

Reading 4: Saturday, February 24

The fourth read-through of Much Ado About Nothing!

(Most of you are double or triple cast, so double check which lines you have to read.) You can look up the lines of the characters here. The names listed below all go with the Folger Edition.

Please submit your confirmation or any request to understudy here. If you’re in any doubt, please ask.

Times and time zones:

EST (US): 12:00 PM CST (US): 11:00 AM MST (US): 10:00 AM PST (US): 9:00 AM GMT (UK): 5:00 PM AEDT (AU): 4:00 AM (Sunday, February 25)

Leader: @purplemuskrat

Benedick:  @maplelantern Leonato, 1st Lord:  @sirenofthetimes Prince (Don Pedro), 2nd Watchman:  @musingsofaretiredunicorn Beatrice, Sexton:  @thuriweaver Claudio, 1st Watchman:  @bottom-of-the-riverbed Dogberry, Leonato's Brother, Antonio:  @infinitelytheheartexpands Borachio, Messenger, Boy:  @tinyfrenchowl Hero, Verges, Balthasar:  @thehamletdiaries Don John, Ursula, Seacoal:  @normallyparenthetical Margaret, Friar Francis, Conrade:  @purplemuskrat

Please submit your confirmation here. - liking/reblogging this post does not count!

Read the Guidelines. To avoid the differences between editions that make for confusion and missed cues, please use the Folger edition of Much Ado About Nothing during the read-through.

Be on time, be prepared, and make sure you know which lines to read. Good luck!

[do-you-have-a-flag]

actually since i've seen over 30 live theatrical productions let me just list a few highlights of what i've seen because i love aussie theatre when i get out to see it

ghost quartet ending with them handing the audience their instruments and i got to pluck at a cello

calamity jane post show lobby piano sing along to i kissed a girl where calamity and kate's actresses kissed

the modernised edward ii play that used the Petula Clark song I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love, i saw it twice because it was soooooo much and i had to share the brainrot with friends #DicksOut4EdwardII

the bit in the black rider where an actor has to roll around in goop while everyone chants AN OILY NIGHT

rocky horror show production where Frank's floor show entrance was a upon a giant winged penis that ejaculated confetti hearts onto the audience

the guy playing Jesus in a small production of reefer madness coming out to sweep the stage hearing "take off your shirt Jesus!" and doing so

much ado about nothing at the pop-up globe right around the marriage equality postal vote where dogberry and verges got together at the end with dogberry shouting I VOTE YES!

seeing Topol in his farewell tour of Fiddler on the roof where the whole audience clapped in time every single scene change

studying richard iii in highschool going as a class to see the MTC production, and everyone realising the lead actor looked like our literature teacher, that teacher coming into class the next day doing an impression of richard the third

the production of les miserables that was so good not only did i see it twice but i think amongst my friends everyone must have seen it upwards of 30 times collectively