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normal people at 1am: *is sleeping*
me at 1am: in the first scene of richard iii laurence olivier says chameleon funny
#no seriously though#he says it like#kAmillYON#wtf pronunciation is that#laurence olivier#shakespeare#richard iii#now is the winter of our discontent
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“he capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber to the lascivious pleasing of a lute”
WHAT lute and WHY
WHO, while he is capering so nimbly, is sitting in the corner of that lady’s chamber PLAYING THE FUCKING LUTE
#richard iii#now is the winter of our discontent#made glorious summer by this sun of york#etc#shakespeare#soliloquy
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I just realised today that Miss Saigon has so many more layers of tragedy to it than I thought.
Like, of course it's tragic. It's a devastating story with a harrowing ending; she shoots herself to secure her child's future in a final, broken act of desperation.
But it doesn't end there. What is she desperate for? America. The American dream. The dream that haunts the minds of so many, yet rarely comes into fruition. It's almost impossible to achieve, because it basically doesn't exist. Yet this is a constant theme throughout the musical - Movie in my Mind; Last Night of the World; there's even a song called "The American Dream". It's what they live for.
I was just listening to Last Night of the World, and this bit stuck out to me-
"On another side of the earth
There's a place where life still has worth
I will take you, I'll go with you
You won't believe all the things you see
I know cause you see them all with me
If we're together that's when we'll hear it again." (Chris singing to Kim)
It's all just wrong. As we know, Kim never gets to see America, but she lives her life with hope. Yet in reality, there never really was any hope. What would really happen when she got to America? Poverty, work, stress, all these things exist in America as in Vietnam. But she doesn't see that. She sees only what she is told.
And then there's Chris, too. Chris is a very immature character - though immature as in sheltered, rather than childish. (We see this in his song Why God Why - he has no idea of the realities of war, and experiences quite a culture shock when seeing Vietnamese culture. There's a part of the song where the tone changes entirely and we see what was going through his mind on signing up for the war - "I went back and re-upped/Sure Saigon is corrupt/It felt better to be/Here driving for the embassy/'Cause here if you can pull a string/A guy like me lives like a king/Just as long as you don't believe anything...".) He has no idea that what he has experienced in America is nothing like what Kim will experience if she goes. He's been living the American dream, he believes in the American dream, and he knows no truth other than the American dream.
It isn't his fault, but it's what makes Kim's life - and ultimately, her death - all the more tragic. Her fight was all for a lost prospect.
#miss saigon#underrated musicals#claude-michel schonberg#alain boublil#les miserables#last night of the world#movie in my mind#theatre analysis#theatre#musical analysis#i am a nerd#american dream#ANYWAY
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anapest definitely deserved better. like, who decided to give them limericks? why can't they give anapest something a little more sophisticated?
iambic pentameter got shakespeare; anapest got stuck with limericks. where's the justice in that? there's no going back now. anapest will forever be the language of the limerick. in this essay i will-
#anapest#iambic pentameter#poetic meter#i am an english nerd don't judge#or actually judge all you like idc#shakespeare#shakespeare fandom#JUSTICE FOR ANAPESTIC TRIMETER
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