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Tag: william shakespeare

  • This gift guide for movie lovers ranges from candles and pj’s to books for babies and adults

    If you think gifts for movie lovers begin and end with Blu-Rays and cineplex gift cards, think again. There’s lots of ways to get creative (and impress) the film fan in your life.

    You could always splurge on a Sundance Film Festival pass (starting at $350 for the online edition, $4,275 for an in-person express pass ) for its last edition in Park City, Utah, this January. Or buy a plaid Bob Ferguson-inspired robe (perhaps this L.L. Bean option for $89.95) for the ones who can’t stop talking about “One Battle After Another.”

    For the very forward-thinking, you could help the Christopher Nolan fan in your life brush up on “The Odyssey” before next July with Emily Wilson’s translation (at bookstores.)

    Here are a few of our other favorite finds this holiday season for all kinds of movie fans.

    The ultimate Wes Anderson box set

    The Criterion Collection’s 20-disc Wes Anderson Archive box set is an investment for the true diehard. Anchored around 10 films over the past 25 years, from “Bottle Rocket” through “The French Dispatch,” the mammoth package includes new 4K masters, over 25 hours of special features, and 10 illustrated, chicly clothbound books, as well as essays from the likes of Martin Scorsese and James L. Brooks. $399.96.

    Mise en Scènt candles

    Home movie nights need the right atmosphere, and this female-owned, Brooklyn-based company creates (and hand pours) candles inspired by favorite movies. Their bestselling — and sometimes out of stock — “Old Hollywood” candle will bring you back to the silver screen’s golden age with the smell of “deep, smoky and worn-in leather,” which might be ideal with TCM playing in the background. The “Rom Com” scent evokes the feeling of a “meet-cute in a grocery aisle” with something clean, fresh and floral (maybe for watching “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” or “Materialists” ). There’s also a “French New Wave” candle that would work well with Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague.” Other scents include “Mystery,” “Fantasy,” “Macabre,” “Villain Era,” “Bad Movie” and “Main Character.” Starting at $24.

    Baby’s first movie book

    These adorable and beautifully illustrated board books take parents and kids on a journey through genres, from “My First Hollywood Musical” and “My First Sci-Fi Movie” to the very niche “My First Giallo Horror” and “My First Yakuza Movie.” There are also three box sets available for $45 each. Oscar-winning “Anora” filmmaker Sean Baker called them his “go-to gifts for new parents.” From ’lil cinephile. Starting at $15.

    Pajamas fit for a KPop Demon Hunter

    Rumi’s “choo choo” pajama pants would make a cozy gift for days when you find yourself chanting “Couch! Couch! Couch!” Don’t understand what any of that means? Don’t worry, the “KPop Demon Hunters” fan in your life will. Available from Netflix. $56.95.

    A Roger Deakins memoir

    Even if you don’t know the name Roger Deakins you certainly know his work — simply put, he’s one of the greatest working cinematographers in the business. His credits include “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Sicario,” “Skyfall” and “1917.” Fittingly, his memoir “Reflections: On Cinematography” is uniquely visual, with never-before-seen storyboards, sketches and diagrams. The 76-year-old Oscar winner also looks back on his life, his early love of photography and how he found his way into 50 years of moviemaking, where he’d find longstanding partnerships with some of the great auteurs, from the Coen brothers to Sam Mendes and Denis Villeneuve. Hachette Book Group. $45.

    An alternative streamer for cinephiles

    If Netflix is too pedestrian for the cinephile in your life, the Kino Film Collection offers a robust and rotating lineup of classic and current art house and indie films. Categories include Cannes Favorites (like Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth”), Classics (like “The General,” “Metropolis” and “Nosferatu”) and New York Times Critics’ Picks (like Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi” and Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border”). At $5.99 a month or $59.99 year, it’s also less expensive than the Criterion Channel ($10.99/month, $99/year) and Mubi ($14.99/month, $119.88/year).

    The Celluloid card game

    Who’s the biggest film buff in your family or group of friends? This clever card game might have the answer for you. Each Celluloid card contains prompts (like location, character and action) and you have to pick a movie that fits as many cards as possible. $19.

    An expressionistic dive into Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’

    Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao, actor Jessie Buckley and photographer Agata Grzybowska collaborated on a gorgeous coffee-table book about “Hamnet,” opening in theaters in limited release on Nov. 27 and expected to be a major Oscar contender. The film, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s story, which won the National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction, imagines the circumstances around the death of William Shakespeare’s 11-year-old son and how it may have influenced the writing of “Hamlet.” The coffee-table book, called “Even as a Shadow, Even as a Dream,” is not a making-of, or behind-the-scenes look in any conventional sense, but an otherworldly, haunting companion piece of carefully chosen images and words. Mack books. $40.

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    For more AP gift guides and holiday coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/gift-guide and https://apnews.com/hub/holidays.

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  • Just Like the Song, “The Fate of Ophelia” Video Has Little to Do With Shakespeare’s Character in Hamlet

    Because Taylor Swift has increasingly decided to cast herself in the role of “English teacher” to the masses, maybe it should come as no surprise that she opted to not only write a song called “The Fate of Ophelia” for The Life of a Showgirl, but to make it the first track on the album and the lead single. Even though, to be quite honest, of all the schlock on this record, the title track featuring Sabrina Carpenter probably would have been her best bet for “first single” material. But it’s obvious that Swift wants to style herself as some kind of literary authority with this track, even if, for the most part, what comes across is the fact that Swift kind of just likes all the imagery surrounding Ophelia, including plenty of water-related scenes, as well as the famed painting of her by Sir John Everett Millais. Finding it “actually romantic,” Swift delivers her own “Pre-Raphaelite” take on the image by opening the video on a scene of a rather generic-looking rich person’s house (think: the “Blank Space” video) before panning over to a painting off to the side that features Swift in a white dress in “Ophelia pose.”

    Naturally, the painting “comes to life,” with Swift rising up as though now on a set. And oh, turns out she is, with the backdrops behind her suddenly lifting as she walks along the sound stage and sings, “I heard you calling on the megaphone” as the presumed director of the “production” does just that (though, needless to say, “megaphone,” within the context of the lyrics, is all about the cheerleader connotation as it relates to football). Swift continues the literalism of the lyrics by taking an oversized matchstick from someone else on the set, miraculously igniting it against her chest and then tossing it casually toward someone else (conveniently, a fire breather) while singing, “As legend has it, you are quite the pyro/You light the match to watch it blow.”

    From there, Swift does another costume change into something decidedly more “showgirl”: a sequined red leotard, rounded out by platinum blonde hair. This as she joins her fellow “Eras Tour family” in the dressing room. Commenting on the reunion with her dancers (who appear in various other scenes as well), Swift gushed, “Writing, rehearsing, directing and shooting the music video for ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ was the thrill of a lifetime because I got to be reunited with my Eras Tour family!! I wanted each one-take scene to feel like a live performance and remind us all of how it felt to be at those shows together. Making every moment count. It’s a journey through the chaotic world of show business.” Though, if that was the intent, it certainly doesn’t come across—at least not even one iota as effectively as the chaotic world of show business displayed in, what else, Showgirls. Nor does it have much to do with Ophelia in Hamlet.

    Then again, nothing Swift yammers on about in this song really does, least of all the shudder-inducing chorus (which is the part of the song that sounds most like Demi Lovato’s 2011 hit, “Give Your Heart a Break”), “All that time I sat alone in my tower/You were just honing your powers/Now I can see it all/Late one night/You dug me out of my grave and/Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.” Never mind that likening Travis Kelce to Hamlet is in extremely inaccurate taste (for intelligence level alone), but, lest anyone forget, he was no Prince Charming positioned in any way to “save” Ophelia from her “fate”: death. What’s more, even if Kelce isn’t the Hamlet to her Ophelia, per se, that Swift likens a fairy-tale romance to being saved (while repurposing Shakespeare in the process) isn’t exactly a “cute look” for 2025. Though it does certainly fortify the long-standing speculation that she’s fundamentally Republican, ergo right at home with the MAGA crowd despite her “bad blood” with the Orange Creature.

    In any case, to heighten the cornball factor of it all, Swift gets into the weeds as usual with her special breed of arithmomania by having chosen to release the video on Kelce’s birthday, October 5th. Worse still, she urges, “Keep it one hundred on the land, thе sea, the sky.” This being a reference to his jersey number, eighty-seven, and her favorite/lucky number in general, thirteen, adding up to one hundred.

    The video isn’t always quite so precise, coming off like a, that’s right, kaleidoscope of random scenes as one of the showgirls backstage pulls back the curtain to reveal yet another iteration of Swift, who is now dancing onstage (this time with a brunette wig) in something more akin to a 1960s-era getup. Here, too, the intent appears less about promoting an awareness of Shakespearean plays, and more about announcing all the ways in which no one works harder than Swift. During a portion of this performance, Swift and her backup dancers (wearing the same wigs and dresses as her) are presented as though through a kaleidoscope—this tying into how her visualizers for each song on The Life of a Showgirl are also presented in a kaleidoscopic way.

    From there, Swift (who obviously directed) cuts to another stage backdrop that features her on a ship as she strums a mark tree (you know, that wind chime-looking instrument) and remembers that this song is supposed to be, at least somewhat, about Ophelia, singing, “The eldest daughter of a nobleman/Ophelia lived in fantasy/But love was a cold bed full of scorpions/The venom stole her sanity.” Naturally, there are some listeners who won’t bother to read that “scorpions” line as a metaphor, and take it to mean that there was, in fact, a scene of Ophelia lying in bed and suddenly getting stung by scorpions. But no, there is no mention of scorpions at any point in Hamlet, with that “symbol” being more prominent in Macbeth (specifically, when Macbeth says, “O full of scorpions is my mind”). Nor did “venom” steal her sanity, men did. Most especially Hamlet, who killed her father, Polonius. Thus, for Swift to liken her Prince Charming to being the proverbial Hamlet to her Ophelia is a bit…ill-advised.

    As the camera pans out to show that the ship is part of a more theatrical kind of production than a film one (perhaps another attempt at “paying homage” to Shakespeare), Swift continues to prattle on about how Kelce “saved her” from, for all intents and purposes, suicide. Or rather, emotional suicide. She thus persists in thanking him for “rescuing” her, praising, “And if you’d never come for me/I might’ve lingered in purgatory/You wrap around me like a chain, a crown, a vine/Pulling me into the fire.” And yes, Swift clearly thinks she’s endlessly clever for referencing fire instead of water here, seeing as how Ophelia drowned. But what she’s really indicating is that Kelce is pulling her into the depths of hell. If for no other reason than to co-sign some Faustian pact with the NFL.

    Funnily enough, Swift then kind of does “commit suicide” by jumping into the fake water that then transitions into her starring in some kind of 1930s/1940s Busby Berkeley-inspired production (and, by the way, Jennifer Lopez already tread that ground pretty thoroughly with the “Medicine” video) called Sequins Are Forever (they definitely aren’t, but one supposes that was the best “riff” that Taylor could come up with for Elizabeth Taylor’s famed documentary/general philosophy, Diamonds Are Forever). The camera then pans out to once again reveal that this is just a big-budget film production, with the clapperboard informing viewers that the “film” is “featuring” Kitty Finlay (a nod to the “character” that “The Life of a Showgirl” mentions in the first verse, as well as to her grandmother’s last name) and that it is “Take 100” (because Swift splooges every time she self-references, here reminding that she says, “Keep it one hundred on the land, thе sea, the sky”).

    The “spectacle” keeps going in the next scene as Swift, now in a brown-haired wig again, sports a “rope dress” to match with the piles of ropes around her as she’s then lifted into the air. This followed by a cut to her doing her Las Vegas showgirl cosplay because she remembered she didn’t play up the showgirl aesthetic enough.

    By the final scene, Swift seems to have lost the plot completely with what whatever “meaning” this video was supposed to have by showing Swift being pushed on a cart in a getup that harkens back to her “Lavender Haze” look as she again sings, oh so “eloquently,” “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes.” However, this time when it’s said, Swift ramps up the cringe factor by having someone offscreen pass a football to her to catch. As if the viewer/listener wasn’t already well-aware that the track is all about Travis being a hero/“knight in shining armor” (or rather, in a shining football uniform).

    The cart leads Swift through some 1920s-looking hotel, complete with the aesthetic of the bellhops (maybe she had recently rewatched AHS: Hotel and took notes). And, evidently, these bellhops are having a party (one that looks decidedly New Year’s Eve-y, which would make sense considering Swift’s song, “New Year’s Day”). While Swift feigns getting down with “the help” for a minute, she soon steals away to the bathroom where the final shot is of her lying in the bathtub (from the same photoshoot featured on the standard edition of her album cover). Driving home the point that she’s been spared from the fate of Ophelia in that she’s just taking a bath in her showgirl-wear, not drowning. All because some big, strong meathead saved her! Shakespeare would be so proud.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Jeremy McCarter’s Audiodrama Puts Us Inside Hamlet’s Head

    McCarter’s audio adaptation of Hamlet embraces audio experimentation to renew one of theater’s most familiar texts. Courtesy Make-Believe Association and the Tribeca Festival

    For early modern audiences, the question of how to represent Hamlet’s dead father was answered by trapdoors, white flour on an armored face or an actor playing a bloodied corpse. After lighting and sound technology standardized the spectral stage, film answered with the magic of superimposition and the green screen. More recently, the 2023 Public Theater production uniquely possessed Hamlet by putting the ghost inside him. In a rapturous performance, streaming on Great Performances through tomorrow, Ato Blankson-Wood rolls his eyes back into his head, fiercely mouthing his father’s fiery plea.

    In a new audio production, Jeremy McCarter, disciple of Oskar Eustis’s Public Theater and founder of the production company Make-Believe Association, goes a step further than the Delacorte staging. McCarter places not the ghost but us, the listeners, inside the character of Hamlet. The sounds of his environment merge with the sounds of his body. We hear what he hears.

    Readers might know McCarter as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s co-writer of Hamilton: The Revolution and as a public historian in his own right. But since the founding of Make-Believe in 2017, McCarter’s collaborative efforts have centered around original, live audio plays by Chicago writers. With the pandemic, the company shifted to longer form studio productions, including most recently Lake Song, which is something of a Waterworld for the modern ear. Listening through Make-Believe’s stream, I thought: Is this what would have happened if Studs Terkel, Norman Corwin and Octavia Butler got together and played around with 21st-century recording technology?

    Maybe so. But even today’s listeners will need to warm up to any version of Hamlet told only from the main character’s perspective. And McCarter knows this. Episode 1 begins not with the “Who’s there?” of the famous sentinel scene (Hamlet’s absent from it, after all), but instead with listening directions for the modern commuter: “The tale that you’re about to hear, with its carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,” whispers Daveed Diggs, in a playful pastiche of the playtext, “will come most vividly to life, if you listen to it…on headphones.”

    And so it does. When we first encounter Hamlet, sound designer Mikhail Fiksel conjures a scene reminiscent of an actor readying to enter a stage. We hear footsteps echo across the solitary silence of the stereo soundscape, a deep inbreath and then a heavy door opening unto Claudius’s coronation scene. Suddenly, the social space—the music, the laughter, the chatter—of Elsinore is upon us. Daniel Kyri, who plays Hamlet with a subtleness rarely afforded to stage actors, pummels himself, right from the get-go, with the wish that “this too too solid flesh would melt.” Soliloquies, under McCarter’s direction, are not private thoughts uttered aloud but instead long-running interior monologues.

    Adapting Hamlet to audio is not a new thing. Orson Welles’s Columbia Workshop took it up in fall 1936, and the BBC 12 years later. These adaptations sound dated to us today, but they were part of a vibrant auditory culture of their time. As Neil Verma has written, radio dramatists constructed a fourth wall for listeners at the same time that stage dramatists attempted to break it down for spectators. Contemporary productions on Audible tend to eschew the declamatory style of these earlier works, and also, sadly, their acoustic experimentation. This is where McCarter’s production is a welcome intervention into this overproduced yet underheard play: a return to the imaginative possibilities of the acoustic medium.

    Hamlet: World Premiere Listening Event - 2025 Tribeca FestivalHamlet: World Premiere Listening Event - 2025 Tribeca Festival
    Daniel Kryi, who plays the titular character, at the “Hamlet: World Premiere Listening Event” during the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival

    The series doesn’t sacrifice the visual sense but instead spatializes it: a complex arrangement of lavalier, shotgun and binaural mics captures sound in all directions. Purists might cry that McCarter slashes up the text to highlight Hamlet’s point of audition, but they are posers. Any Shakespeare scholar knows that the text we read today is itself highly mediated, a composite of at least three different versions. In the age of Grand Theft Hamlet, this version offers remarkable fidelity despite its formal innovation.

    Intimacy might just be the word to describe what the Make-Believe team achieves here. And it’s true: We do hear Hamlet’s heartbeat, breath and memory against the backdrop of his social world. I think the experiment works best when we hear Hamlet not foregrounded but embedded in the specificities of his place and time; when the mic is not inside him, or even him, but instead on his lapel, capturing the soundscape as it merges with his fractured perceptions. This happens most memorably in Episode 3, when the sound of bells decreasing in half steps tells not just the time of day but also the scale of mental descent.

    Yet there is a danger in achieving this intimacy by reducing Hamlet the play to Hamlet the character. We might call this McCarter’s “Hamilton-ization” of Hamlet: the individualizing of the character against his social world. The “To be or not to be” soliloquy, for instance, is done completely underwater. It makes for riveting audio, methinks, but it erases the fact that most of the soliloquies of the play are overheard. This includes the usurping King Claudius’s speech, where he laments that his “O limèd soul, that struggling to be free / Art more engaged.” This speech is translated as overheard noise in the audio, but we’d do better to listen broader. Claudius is comparing his soul to an animal caught in a glue trap, and at times, Make-Believe’s production, too, becomes more ensnared as it attempts to become more free.

    McCarter’s stated aim is to resist the commonplace that Hamlet, as Laurence Olivier famously voiced over the 1948 film, “could not make up his mind” by, well, getting us into his mind. But this rhetoric ends up perpetuating that romantic individualism instead of challenging it, making what is social—primogeniture, murder, love—solely a problem of the conscience. In doing so, the artwork, too, ends up privatizing very public questions: What system do we resort to when an injustice has been enacted? How do we test the truth of our beliefs when we cannot trust our own perceptions? As McCarter explains in his New York Times op-ed, he is most interested in this question: “Who among us hasn’t felt,” he writes, “that ‘the time is out of joint’?” But in making the play into a universal coming-of-age narrative, we lose out on asking what an “us” is.

    And so, how does this production stage “Enter Ghost”? I won’t give it away. It sounds awesome, even if it doesn’t quite make sense. (Especially if you’re a nerd like me and study the script along with the audio. How exactly does Hamlet write something down when he’s in the ocean?) But that’s no matter, because this adaptation is less about making sense than remaking the senses.

    Indeed, the most compelling adaptation of the stage direction “Enter Ghost” is not an adaptation at all, but Isabella Hammad’s 2021 novel Enter Ghost. It tells the story of a British Palestinian actress caught up in a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. The novel doesn’t aim to make its characters like us but instead attempts the opposite: to force readers like me to confront a world that is radically different from their own. This is what all great art should do. Or so I’ve heard.

    More in performing arts

    Jeremy McCarter’s Audiodrama Puts Us Inside Hamlet’s Head

    Alex Ullman

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  • How Marvel’s Huge Budget for ‘Eternals’ Actually Worked Against It

    Chloé Zhao is currently promoting her follow-up to Marvel Studios’ Eternals, an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet. The 2020 book is based on William Shakespeare and his wife as they grieve the loss of one of their children, which would go on to inspire Hamlet. It makes sense that after making a movie where the Academy Award-winning director’s voice felt pulled in many directions, a more intimate movie would be her next choice. 

    In an interview with Vanity Fair, Zhao talked about how her experience on Eternals informed her approach to Hamnet. The filmmaker also said working with a Disney budget on a Marvel property really pushed her range.

    “Eternals prepared me for Hamnet because it’s world-building. Before that, I had only done films that existed in the real world. I also learned what to do and not to do—what’s realistic and what isn’t,” she said of the mixed reception she got on her Marvel movie, which shone in the moments Zhao’s visionary storytelling was on full display in sweeping visuals and powerful moments between the family of Gods.

    But having such a big studio production surrounding her wasn’t the freeing experience you might expect. “Eternals had, like, an unlimited amount of money and resources … Eternals didn’t have a lot of limitations, and that is actually quite dangerous,” Zhao reflected. In the smaller-scaled Hamnet, “suddenly everything has meaning.”

    The lead-up to the film’s release, as superhero-fatigued fans were getting uncertain about the more esoteric characters within the MCU, made it abundantly clear as an audience that Marvel Studios was beginning to let the expectations of what worked before inform what was put into the film along with what Zhao hoped to make. In the wake of the divisive discourse of what comic book movie fans thought about Eternals, plans for the sequel and its ensemble’s presence in team-up films were quietly scrapped.

    Thankfully for Hamnet, Zhao had Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes on her side. “Their feedback was very filmmaker-driven because they’re both incredible filmmakers, so when they gave me notes, they were already infused with what they knew was my style,” she shared of staying true to her choices while the Marvel film tried to do it all. “Even when I did things that probably were confusing or didn’t make sense to people, they would say, ‘You know what? We trust her. Let her do her thing.’”

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

    Sabina Graves

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  • PinkPantheress’ Gambit: The “Romeo” Video

    The success of PinkPantheress’ nine-track mixtape, Fancy That, continues with yet another video from one of the songs on the album, “Romeo.” A mid-tempo ditty that happens to be the final track on the album, and yet another that samples from Basement Jaxx (specifically, their 2004 hit, “Good Luck”)—after “Girl Like Me,” which itself samples from the well-known Basement Jaxx single, “Romeo.” But perhaps PinkPantheress thought it would be too on the nose to use the latter sample in her own song of the same name. Just as she seemed to think it would be too on the nose to set her Iris Luz-directed music video in Verona while wearing some Renaissance-y ensembles. And besides, she already explored the Regency era in her Bridgerton-inspired video for “Tonight.” So why bother returning to the “deep past” again? 

    Still, it’s apparent she wants to pay some kind of homage to the Shakespeare play that everyone associates the name Romeo with, thus wielding other specific character names from Romeo and Juliet in her “Pink Cubs” group chat (e.g., Rosaline, Paris and Mercutio). Before revealing these texts, however, PinkPantheress sets the stage for where the milieu of the video will be with a title card that reads: “Summer 2025: A competitive chess tournament takes place in South London. This video was filmed at that tournament.” As such, PinkPantheress seemed to take plenty of advantage of the opportunity to be amidst some fellow chess pros, save for Destin Conrad, who just happens to be playing the “video vixen,” as he calls himself in the Instagram post mentioning the video’s release. 

    However, while Conrad might not be a chess guru, PinkPantheress certainly is, with chess prowess in her blood thanks to being the niece of five-time British Women’s Chess Champion Susan Lalic (who also holds the chess titles of International Master and Woman Grandmaster). Perhaps wanting to finally show off that side of herself in a more immortalized way (read: the music video medium), in addition to waiting for The Queen’s Gambit to more fully fall away from public consciousness, PinkPantheress goes all out on revealing her fervor for the game. Which also acts as a kind of metaphor for what happens when a person falls in love, maneuvering and posturing in a manner that might lead him or her to attract—lure—the other person successfully and to “make them” fall in love in return. 

    In this sense, the idea of one’s would-be lover acting as a kind of “opponent” is only too real. Along with the symbolism of putting as much strategy into winning their love as what goes into moving the pawns on a chessboard. And, to be sure, it often does feel like some unseen “hand” is moving us forward or backward in this chessboard called life, which also applies to matters of l’amour. 

    Luckily for PinkPantheress, who, at times, looks more like she’s at a speed dating event than playing chess, she hasn’t fallen in love, knowing better as she tells (or rather, lip-syncs telling) a reporter interviewing her about her “strategy,” “Step one, don’t let yourself fall in love/‘Cause that is not fun.” Because it’s never fun to not be the one in control, and falling in love with another person means exactly that: losing all control. Something a chess queen like PinkPantheress simply can’t abide, instead acting as the ringleader of all the other players at certain points in the video that give way to more fantastical moments. Like PinkPantheress in the center of a giant chessboard (placed atop a tartan print, of course, in keeping with the Fancy That visual motif) surrounded by players/backup dancers who look as though they’re dressed in marching band uniforms (while a chess uniform would essentially amount to a suit jacket, button-front shirt and maybe a tie).

    Appearing at one point as though she’s scaled to the same size as a chess piece, it somewhat harkens back to a scene in Megan Thee Stallion’s “Whenever” video when she rides on the “horse chess piece” a.k.a. the knight. In fact, it’s PinkPantheress’ move with the knight at the end of the video that wins her the tournament. And, since life imitates art, she opts to make the final scene of her holding the trophy she seemed to so effortlessly win. And yes, if there was a trophy for Most Aloof in Matters of Being Pursued, she might just get that too, if “Romeo” is anything to go by. 

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Fall in Love with Romeo & Juliet at Houston Shakespeare Festival

    Fall in Love with Romeo & Juliet at Houston Shakespeare Festival

    The tale of two star-crossed lovers fated for a tragic end may not sound like a great night out on its face, but I think we all know when it’s by William Shakespeare and it’s Romeo & Juliet, it holds great promise.

    This is why, like many others, I once again traveled down to Miller Outdoor Theatre for the second opening night of the Houston Shakespeare Festival – this time, braving the temperature and insects to see Romeo & Juliet.

    Shakespeare’s classic tale starts with a street brawl erupting on the streets of Verona between the men of the Montague family and those of the Capulets. It’s the third such fight, and the Prince of Verona is not happy about it. In a show of just how unhappy he is, he promises that any more such quarrels will be punished by death.

    One young man unbothered by the violence is Romeo, Montague’s son, and that’s because he only has eyes for a woman named Rosaline. Upon learning that Rosaline has been invited to a party hosted by the Capulets, he crashes it. But he meets Juliet, the Capulets’ teenage daughter, there instead, and they quickly become infatuated with each other. Despite learning each other’s identities, they decide to defy their families’ enmity and marry the very next day. Their happiness is short-lived, however, as their actions set off a chain of events that leads to more violence, death, exile, and even more death.

    It’s been 17 years since the Houston Shakespeare Festival, produced by the University of Houston’s School of Theatre & Dance and the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, performed Romeo and Juliet, one of the Bard’s most famous tragedies. It’s supposed that Shakespeare wrote Romeo & Juliet between 1594 and 1596, right around the same time he was working on several others, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which, though used for comedic effect, features a brief retelling of Pyramus and Thisbe, a tragic love story that may or may not have helped inspire Shakespeare’s own. (Not for nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream just happens to be playing in repertory with Romeo & Juliet during this year’s festival.)

    From the moment the curtain rises to dramatically reveal the chorus, who delivers the prologue in chill-inducing unison, we know we’re safe in director Jack Young’s hands. Young, who doubles as the production’s sound designer, directs the show with clarity and a keen sense of the show’s comedic notes. Young also displays a keen eye for pacing. Things happen fast, but the choices of when and where to linger are sound.

    While you can probably guess by its name, Romeo & Juliet really starts and stops with the casting of its Romeo and Juliet. Luckily, this production boasts wonderful performances from Sophia Marcelle and Kyle Clark.

    Marcelle’s Juliet is girlishly sweet, giggly and excitable. In Marcelle’s hands, it’s easy to remember (and believe) Juliet’s youth – not yet 14 years old at the start of the play – both in the giddiness she displays at the first blush of love to the deep despair she falls into as things begin to go so wrong. Clark’s Romeo is just as exuberant in love, so much so that the spotlight could barely keep up with him at times, though it’s tempered throughout with an angsty sincerity. Their chemistry is palpable, and their likeability is off-the-charts.

    Supporting the two are more than a dozen talented actors, all breathing such life into the production. As saucy in mannerisms as in dialogue, Alan Brincks fast-talks his way through Mercutio’s dude-bro discourse, holding court in every scene. Laura Frye is a mother hen of sorts as Juliet’s nurse, warm and a touch naughty. The distress and naivety in Avery Kenyatta as the Friar lingers even after he’s left the stage, particularly after his final monologue, and Robby Matlock is barely checked angry as Tybalt.

    Michael Sifuentes’s rage at Juliet’s disobedience as Capulet is enough to have the audience flinching, though he and James Cardwell as Montague appear as such pitiable figures at the play’s end. Austin Hanna’s exasperated Prince, Wesley Whitson’s proper Paris, Jack Stansbury’s futile Benvolio, and the humor Andrew Chavez’s injects into the brief moments as Peter all deserve a special mention, too.

    Leah Smith’s solid costumes display the division between Capulet and Montague in blues and reds, with the berets, vests, and dresses the characters wear indicating their allegiance. Jon Young’s scenic design is beautiful in its simplicity. Relatively minimalist in terms of set dressing and props (aside from a few that are used to great effect, like Peter’s umbrella and the nurse’s fan), the stage still comes alive under Clint Allen’s lighting designs, which illuminated the backdrop, a watercolor-like picture of wispy clouds.

    There are some excellent fight scenes, skillfully choreographed by the production’s fight director, Adam Noble, and, once again, much credit to Christina Keefe, who serves as the festival’s voice and text coach, for the natural flow every member of the cast seems to have.

    Music director Samuel Gonzalez also does right by the production, from the sound of springtime that welcomed the audience in, to the overwhelming sense of doom conjured when everything goes wrong.

    Houston Shakespeare Festival’s production of Romeo & Juliet is one to fall in love with. It’s a perfect night at the theater, whether it’s your first time seeing the show or your hundredth. Turns out, departing from this production of Romeo & Juliet was, in fact, sweet sorrow.

    Performances of Romeo & Juliet, which is playing in repertory with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will continue at 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday, August 6, Thursday, August 8, and Saturday, August 10, at Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park. For information, call 832-487-7123 or visit milleroutdoortheatre.com. Free.

    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Othello: The Remix Bounces Along With Infectious Energy at Stages

    Othello: The Remix Bounces Along With Infectious Energy at Stages


    Shakespeare’s Othello is a five-act tragedy that is no stranger to a 180-minute performance. Thankfully, Stages theater steers us from that slog fest and gives its Houston audience an 80-minute delight. Instead of Elizabethan English, vernacular and verse combine to create a sonically infectious world filled with hip hop beats and catchy rhymes.

    In Othello: The Remix, playing in all its bombastic glory, the Q Brothers imagine Othello (Camryn Nunley) as a rapper and Desdemona as the enchanting vocalist that sings the hooks on his songs. They make their best music together and are madly in love with each other.

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    Othello (Camryn Nunley) making music and rapping with Desdemona.

    Photo by Melissa Taylor Photography.

    Cassio (Kory Laquess Pullam) and Iago (Gabriel Mullen) are members of his crew. Jealous of Cassio being pushed to record a new album over him, Iago schemes to ruin Othello’s life since Othello should have given Iago the opportunity instead. Iago manipulates Roderigo (Issac Lopez) to help break up Othello and Desdemona. Though Iago succeeds in creating a rift between Othello and Desdemona, devastation breaks out as a result.

    All the tragic elements that make Othello a tragedy exist in this play. The jealousy, envy, manipulation and deceit are on full display, but the Q Brothers smartly pare down the cast to only its most important characters. When needed Iago’s wife, Emilia (Pullam), and Cassio’s groupie, Bianca (Lopez), are played in frivolous drag costuming for comedic effect. 

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    Cassio (Kory Laques Pullam) rapping.

    Photo by Melissa Taylor Photography.

    Eboni Bell Darcy’s invigorating direction alongside energetic performances highlight just how exhilarating Shakespeare can be. This fast moving and easily comprehensible production flows without hiccups. When the crew is performing, it feels like a concert. A mesmerizing spectacle of vibrant colors and pulsating patterns steer audiences through concerts, personal conversations and private introspection as the lighting (Janessa A. Harris) helps to build tension while punctuating key moments with bursts of brightness to keep the show a thrill.

    This is a relentlessly high-energy show and while the actors’ stamina is tested at times, they never drown in their own sweat. They rap with precision and deliver the punchlines to loud audience response. Pullam stuns as the immature protege. His silly dance moves and juvenile delivery brings to life a character who would fall susceptible to any slight manipulations.

    Nunley and Mullen deliver the raps that require a little more verbal dexterity due to the cleverer wordplay and rhymes. They emoted well while riding the beat and never got bogged down in the verbiage.

    Lopez fascinates. There is an infectious quality anytime an actor steps on stage and visibly enjoys their role. Lopez brings personality to each role that he plays. Even when he humorously takes a brief moment to drink water during a transition, the moment comes alive through audience laughter. He gleefully sees the entertainment value in each moment he’s on stage and takes it. His spontaneity and playfulness adds to the humor of the show.

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    Cassio (Kory Laquess Pullam) keeping Bianca (Issac Lopez) on the hook and not taking her seriously.

    Photo by Melissa Taylor Photography.

    The Q Brothers’ writing is well-crafted, and the lyrics both advance the story and entertain. Rhymes are sprinkled with references to legendary rap artists, Dungeons and Dragons, and tennis references that include a cleverly apt nod to Martina Navratilova. There is something in this show for everyone, but the particular use of hip hop and humor gives this story a more youthful interpretation. The youth in mind more 18 plus than adolescent age.

    If there’s any unease that comes from this production, it is the ribald references to sex and the repetitive physical gestures of the act. After a while, it veers into gratuitous territory and becomes particularly odd when the women to which they are referring either show up on stage through men in drag or in the case of Desdemona, a disembodied singing voice.

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    Iago (Gabriel Mullen) enjoying the confusion that he’s created through his manipulation and scheming.

    Photo by Melissa Taylor Photography.

    The lack of female actors becomes most noticeable toward the end when there is a feminist song, “Man’s World,” that calls out the men for their double standards toward women. While funny and entertaining to watch, the song fails to have critical bite because it undermines itself when it’s performed by men in light drag. For the most part, Emilia and Bianca are portrayed as one-dimensional stock characters who exist purely as comic relief “in this man’s world,” or, at least, in this production of the play.

    Stumbling only in how it represented its female characters, the roaring production of this hip hop musical play is an evening of high-octane performances and hilarious storytelling. Head nodding or foot tapping is inevitable as the music washes over and captivates even the most vehement of hip hop detractors. This bold reimagining triumphs because it embraces the electrifying vitality of hip hop with the unlimited creative potential to breathe new life into Shakespeare’s 400-year-old stories.

    Performances continue through June 9 at 7:30 p.m Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at The Gordy, 800 Rosine. For more information, call 713-537-0123 or visit stageshouston.com. $48-$84.

    Ada Alozie

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  • In its Own Sexist Way, The Taming of the Shrew at Classical Theatre is Funny

    In its Own Sexist Way, The Taming of the Shrew at Classical Theatre is Funny


    “Why are we reading this?”

    The question resounds every year in English classes all across America, especially during the inevitable William Shakespeare unit. All teachers will preach of its perpetual relevance. The passion of young love in Romeo and Juliet. The corrosive effects of ambition and revenge in Hamlet. All of Macbeth.

    What about The Taming of the Shrew, his comedy about several men who conspire and act to break the headstrong and willful nature of a young woman so that her younger sister can be married? It’s one of his more obviously sexist plays; it’s, also, one of his wittiest.

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    John Dunn as the Pedant, Patrick Fretwell as Tranio, and Marc Alba as Biondello

    Photo by Natasha Nivan Photography.

    The play is about a crass father, Baptista (Alan Hall), who has two daughters: the ladylike Bianca (Elisa Cuellar) and the abrasive, older sister Katherina (Laura Kaldis). Lucentio (Fritz Eagleton) comes to town with his servant Tranio (Patrick Fretwell) and is immediately taken by Bianca. Bianca has other suitors, Hortensio (Domonique Champion) and Gremio (Benito Vasquez), who wish to marry her. However, Baptista won’t marry off Bianca without Katherina first being married. Hortensio decides to enlist his friend, Petruchio (Kregg Dailey), to court the sister that no man wants to go near.

    In a battle of wit and will, Katharina and Petruchio go at each other until Petruchio is finally able to subdue the town Shrew. Petruchio has molded Katharina into an obedient wife, and Katharina is happy to obey and seeks great satisfaction in doing so.

    Now that feminism has become just as commonplace an idea of democracy, the plot of the play reads like Gloria Steinem’s worst nightmare. The whole battle-of-the-sexes dynamic seems like a regressive relic of a time no one should earnestly want.

    Yet in 2024, the desire for traditional gender roles has taken on new relevance. Trad wives and Alpha males have taken the internet by storm. Gender roles and sex-based stereotypes that used to be seen as limiting and confining have now been revamped as purpose-giving and innate. How outdated is The Taming of the Shrew really?

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    Kregg Dailey as Petruchio and Laura Kaldis as Katherina

    Photo by Natasha Nivan Photography.

    Rather than downplay the problematic gender elements of the play, Dana Bowman, director of Classical Theatre Company’s production of The Taming of the Shrew, embraces the misogyny of trying to tame a woman. Bowman’s zany decision to frame the story as a 1950s sitcom unleashes the bawdy comedy with no reservations. There are no attempts to downplay the blatant misogyny, but the sound effects of the laugh track alongside other sound cues are enough to signal that there is a distinction to be made between humor and truth.

    What’s funny doesn’t have to be true. Is that the extent to Bowman’s perspective?

    The sitcom framework can only go so far. While a shrewd decision to adapt this classic this way, once the conceit loses its novelty, this production becomes just another Shakespeare play set in a new period. The laugh track becomes intermittently used. Lively ’50s inspired commercial breaks devolve into obvious breaks needed for set changes. At points, the momentum flounders. The scenes don’t transition well into each other, and the comedy loses its rhythm. Thankfully, it has actors who breathe vitality into this show when its ideas are running on fumes.

    From the moment Fretwell appears on stage with Eagleton, it’s clear that he has completely bought into the conventions of the sitcom. His physical comedy when he’s both Tranio and Tranio-playing-Lucentio is enjoyable to watch. The way he nimbly moves his body to evoke the confusion of a servant pretending to be upper class highlights reveals a playful use of his body. Tranio’s loyalty and resourcefulness comes through comprehensively.

    Cuellar is the coquettish ingénue. Every doe-eyed glance is both beguiling and endearing. Her smile is both inviting and perfunctory. Cuellar effectively weaponizes her charm as a tool to further her own desires. She’s the sister who marries exactly who she wants to marry while Katharina ends up with a lively brute. Cuellar’s stage presence evokes that of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Daisy Buchanan — all the enchantment and allure with none of the shallowness.

    Kaldis plays the stubborn sister with zeal alongside Dailey’s boisterous and capricious Petruchio. Hall delivers the most insensitive and unkind words about his eldest daughter in such a naturally glib tone that his amusing disdain for her conveys a matter of fact acceptance of who she is. Ehrhardt’s Grumio a never ending source of comical misunderstandings and tongue-in-cheek innuendo.

    Domonique Champion stuns as Hortensio. His comedic timing and delivery of certain lines showcased not only his clear grasp of the language but also his ability to use his physicality to heighten a joke. At a certain point, his hat became just as much a part of his body as his arms and legs. He does not only excel at delivering multiple moments of laugh-at-loud laughter.

    His failed courtship of Bianca, while funny, finds balance in his earnest display of crushed hopes and rejection. His sadness for the courtship’s ending is palpable. That sadness is also felt when Benito Vasquez as Gremio is rejected. Despite his self-interested desires for wanting Bianca as his bride, Vasquez’s disappointment is real just as much as his desire for her wealth and beauty.

    What this production excels at is letting this Shakespearean comedy be a comedy. Even though the characters’ behaviors can be exaggerated, their intentions and desires are sincere and taken seriously. It’s this production’s commitment to performing the real intentions and real feelings of these characters that makes all the sexist underpinnings feel more like a bug rather than a feature.

    Performances continue through April 20 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at the DeLuxe Theater, 3303 Lyons. For more information call, 713-963-9665 or visit classicaltheatre.org $10-$30.

    Ada Alozie

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  • Best Bets: Rebirth, Houston’s Got Bollywood and The Taming of the Shrew

    Best Bets: Rebirth, Houston’s Got Bollywood and The Taming of the Shrew

    Interestingly, today is National Barbershop Quartet Day. We don’t have any barbershop quartets on this week’s list of best bets, but we do have plenty of musical performances, from a Tony Award-winning musical about an American icon to Bollywood in the Bayou City, as well as films, dance, and theater shows. Keep reading for these and more events on our list of best bets.

    For decades, Rob Reiner’s 1987 film The Princess Bride, “a high-spirited adventure that pits true love against inconceivable odds,” has been charming “legions of fans with its irreverent gags, eccentric ensemble, and dazzling swordplay.” On Thursday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m. Performing Arts Houston will welcome the actor who played heroic farm boy Westley, Cary Elwes, to Jones Hall for The Princess Bride: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes. Following a screening of the film, Elwes, who authored As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride, will join Houston Public Media‘s Ernie Manouse to give audiences a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film during a moderated discussion. A second screening is scheduled for Friday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. and tickets to either are available here for $39 to $99.

    The 1950s-style American sitcom meets William Shakespeare in Classical Theatre Company’s upcoming production of The Bard’s The Taming of the Shrew, which opens at The DeLuxe Theater on Friday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. Director Dana Bowman has noted that the classic is “definitely a sexist play,” and their approach is to “look back at the 1950s and sort of see what parallels we can draw” while staging it as sitcom – like Father Knows Best or The Dick Van Dyke Show – so “it can still be fun.” The production, which will conclude the company’s season-long celebration of iconic women, will run through April 20 with performances scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and April 15; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets can be purchased here for $10 to $30.

    Art on wheels once again comes to the streets of Houston as The Orange Show Center For Visionary Art presents the 37th Annual Art Car Parade, led by Saint Arnold’s founder Brock Wagner and scheduled to start at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 13, on Allen Parkway between Bagby and Dallas. Orange Show Executive Director Tommy Ralph Pace recently told the Houston Press that he thinks the event “is more about celebrating the spirit of creativity that the city of Houston has,” adding that “it’s such an incredible honor to be able to steward this celebration for the city.” If you can’t get your fill of art car celebrations, information about the events around the parade, such as the Art Car Ball on Friday, April 12, can be found here. The parade is free to attend.

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    Houston’s Got Bollywood returns to Miller Outdoor Theatre on Saturday with Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After.

    Photo by Navin Mediwala

    Bollywood, the “humorous moniker for the Indian cinema industry,” will come to Miller Outdoor Theatre on Saturday, April 13, at 8:15 p.m. during Houston’s Got Bollywood – Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever produced by Moksh Community Arts. The dance-theater performance by Naach Houston will feature 50 dancers in beautiful costumes telling short stories across four acts, all of which draws from the “extravagant song-and-dance scenes, romantic melodrama, and eye-catching set designs” Bollywood is known for. Like all shows at Miller Outdoor Theatre, this one is free and you can reserve free tickets here starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 12, if you want an assigned, covered seat. Alternatively, you can bring a blanket or lawn chair and head for the ticketless seating on the Hill.

    There’s a new dance collective in town, and you can get your first look at the Skylar Campbell Dance Collective when they present their debut showcase, titled Rebirth, at 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, at the MATCH. Campbell, a principal dancer with Houston Ballet, curates the evening, which features works from Guillaume Cote, Kristina Paulin and Alexei Ratmansky, along with world premiere commissions from Julia Adam, Robert Binet, Connor Walsh and Jack Wolff. Completing the program will be the talents of dancers from Houston Ballet and National Ballet of Canada, as well as live music provided by Tonya Burton and Yvonne Chen of the Monarch Chamber Players. Tickets to the performance, which is expected to run about 60 minutes, can be purchased here for $45.

    In 1979, tension between the fishing community of Seadrift, Texas, and an influx of Vietnamese immigrants led to the shooting of a local white man by a Vietnamese man, an incident that got the attention of the Ku Klux Klan and would later inspire the film Alamo Bay. On Tuesday, April 16, at 7 p.m. Asia Society Texas, in partnership with Humanities Texas, will present a screening of the documentary Seadrift followed by a talk and audience Q&A with Tim Tsai, the film’s director. Tsai has said that questions about Seadrift – like “Are the Vietnamese still there? Is it possible for a community to heal from past division and violence? If yes, how?” – “compelled” him “to find out more.” Admission is free, but registration is required here.

    The Tony Award-winning musical about the woman born Cherilyn Sarkisian but known today simply as Cher will come to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. when Theatre Under the Stars opens the national touring production of The Cher Show. Cher is played by three actresses in the production, and one of those actresses, Morgan Scott, recently told the Houston Press that she thinks Cher’s “re-invention of herself is what makes her absolutely so incredible,” adding that the show – even for non-Cher fans – is “a really uplifting and empowering show to go to.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays through April 28. Tickets can be purchased here for $40 to $139.

    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Postcards from Sydney (Australia and Sweeney)

    Postcards from Sydney (Australia and Sweeney)

    It’s no secret that the rom-com is an ever-dying genre. One that’s harder and harder to “spoon-feed” audiences that have gotten both younger and more jaded. The last generation to truly “revere” (or at least appreciate) the art of the rom-com (and it is far more of an art than people give it credit for) is probably millennials. Sydney Sweeney, however, is not quite a millennial, having missed the cutoff by just a year. But perhaps as a “geriatric Gen Zer,” she identifies more with the millennial heart, hence her commitment to the role of Beatrice a.k.a. “Bea” (a name that no one who is twenty-six years old would ever have, but 1) it’s a nod to Much Ado About Nothing and 2) that’s the least of one’s suspension-of-disbelief worries). A character given life by co-screenwriters Ilana Wolpert and Will Gluck (who hasn’t written a rom-com since 2011’s Friends With Benefits (itself a foil to No Strings Attached, released earlier the same year; and weirdly, Justin Timberlake probably should have starred in that film instead since NSYNC titled their 2000 album the same thing). And since Anyone But You is earnest about “bringing back the rom-com,” Bea is someone who wastes no time walking right into a meet-cute. 

    While more conventional rom-coms might wait a few scenes instead of just “raw dogging” their audience like that with a meet-cute, Anyone But You takes the plunge for a “good” reason: Bea and the object of her affection, Ben (Glen Powell), are about to hate each other far more than they ever like each other for the brief twelve or so hours they spend on a date. This after Ben does her a solid by pretending she’s his wife so she can jump the line at the coffee shop to be able to buy something, therefore use the bathroom. Then, of course, further hijinks ensue because the sink ends up spraying her entire crotch with water so she has to air dry her jeans by taking them off. Miraculously (and because of rom-com “law”), the jeans are able to fully dry so that she can exit the bathroom without seeming like “the girl who pissed her pants” to Ben. 

    Like many beloved and, at times, “awesomely bad” rom-coms (most of them falling into the subcategory of “teen movie”) of the last few decades (including Just One of the Guys, 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s the Man and Warm Bodies), Anyone But You borrows the core of its plotline from William Shakespeare. Specifically, Much Ado About Nothing. And yet, like 10 Things I Hate About You, the film opts to “pepper in” multiple “little” Easter eggs pertaining to the British bard. For example, after Bea walks out of Ben’s apartment in the morning, there’s a wall she passes that features the manicured graffiti: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.” (Maybe that’s believable enough in an “erudite” town like Boston.) This being extracted from a monologue by Romeo in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet during which he continues on with a barrage of oxymorons: “Why, then,/O brawling love!/O loving hate!/O any thing, of nothing first create!/O heavy lightness! serious vanity!/Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!/Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!/Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!/This love feel I, that feel no love in this./Dost thou not laugh?” Gluck and Wolpert’s allusion to this monologue from Romeo is an intentional nod to the adage, “There’s a fine line between love and hate” (or “thin line,” depending on who you ask). 

    Obviously, this applies very much to the dynamic between Bea and Ben, who vacillate between the two so-called extremes at any given moment throughout the movie. As far as being anything like a “direct” adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, the crux of what Anyone But You borrows is the idea that various people, particularly one couple, are trying to convince Bea and Ben that each one is in love with the other. 

    This is done by Bea’s sister, Halle (Hadley Robertson), and Ben’s good friend, Claudia (Alexandra Shipp), the ones getting married and choosing to have a destination wedding in Sydney when they do. As for the seemingly “random” location choice on Gluck’s part, he explained to The Hollywood Reporter that it was a mere matter of funneling his love for the city into something. So it was that he stated, “I wanted Anyone But You set specifically in Sydney because I had really fallen in love with the city, starting back in 2018. After making Peter Rabbit in Sydney, I liked it so much that for Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, I moved my whole family down there.” He also added, “Almost every time you shoot a movie in Sydney, you have to pretend it’s somewhere else and frame out the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. For Anyone But You, I thought, ‘Why do that?’ We actually wrote this movie one hundred  percent for Sydney—very specific to the destination.” The person, maybe not so much. For Sydney Sweeney’s character could easily be played by just about any current Hollywood ingenue (of which there are surprisingly few compared to the days of 00s-era Hollywood). Except maybe Maude Apatow (a.k.a. Sweeney’s “TV sister”). In any case, Anyone But You does build on a rather lacking selection of mainstream movies set in Sydney (most of them “full-on Australian” fare like Strictly Ballroom or Muriel’s Wedding). Alluring viewers to take a trip there as much as it allures them to play “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield (Gluck clearly has a thing for Bedingfield’s music if we’re also going by Easy A). 

    As for Halle and Claudia, like Bea and Ben, their names are also a callback to Much Ado About Nothing’s Claudio and Hero. The couple theoretically “at the center of it all.” Instead, though, everyone gets into the spirit of trying to manipulate Bea and Ben into falling in love. Or at least falling in like for a couple of days (though the movie, at times, feels as though it takes place over a week). Largely out of convenience and wanting to get through said wedding weekend without hearing any more of their bickering. Which is, per rom-com rules, merely just “Hepburn-Tracy”-esque “repartee” that ultimately acts as a kind of foreplay. Indeed, not giving in immediately to the temptation to fuck the “hate” away is half the fun/appeal for Bea and Ben. 

    In terms of dialogue related to that repartee, as well as the plotline itself, Anyone But You might not have the most stalwart of scripts (despite being “adapted” from the unbesmirched Shakespeare). Nor is it anywhere in the same league as rom-com classic standards like His Girl Friday or Some Like It Hot (and later, movies like Pretty Woman, Clueless [which favors a Jane Austen riff rather than a Shakespeare one], The Wedding Singer and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. But what it lacks in substance and “pedigree,” it makes up for in postcard-from-Sydney (Australia and Sweeney) appeal and, well, the sheer fact that it’s a rom-com at all. Because, a​​part from No Hard Feelings, there hasn’t been much in the way of recent rom-com fare for Anyone But You to compete with. In fact, people just seem grateful to bear witness to the existence of a new rom-com at all, what with their increasing unicorn status. It doesn’t have to be anything as “highfalutin” as Shakespeare either. Which Anyone But You certainly isn’t—though it does what it can to “pay tribute.” Mainly through “carefully-curated” lines inserted arbitrarily into the mouths of select characters (e.g., “Some cupids kill with arrows and some with traps”) or on signage where you least expect it (e.g., “Assume thy part in some disguise”). 

    One supposes that’s the height of “sophistication” these days when it comes to a Shakespeare “remake” (though “Shakespeare hodgepodge” seems like the more appropriate phrase—an amalgam of “little references” and “collage-like interpretations” of Shakespeare’s work). Throw in a cute koala and a song that can help a clip go viral on TikTok and, voilà, suddenly you have a hit rom-com on your hands. The song, mind you, is the aforementioned “Unwritten.” Not, say, Olivia Rodrigo’s “bad idea right?,” which soundtracks the trailer (perpetuating a “Rodrigo trend” in trailers if also having “get him back!” played during the Mean Girls 2024 trailer is an indication…but hey, Wolpert did previously work on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, so perhaps her Olivia love goes way back). 

    Indeed, it’s been said that some people are only going to the movie to make it to the credits scene where “Unwritten” plays in all its…glory? (that can’t be the right word). Then they can film themselves with the outtakes (complete with a koala whose stoic facial expression is translated to: “Please leave me alone”). And here one thought that seeing Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths (both of whom appeared in rom-com staple My Best Friend’s Wedding) act as Bea’s parents would be enough. But alas, no one seems to remember such “little details” about rom-coms of yore. Which is how rom-coms like Anyone But You might continue to prevail if the studio system agrees to keep making and distributing them in movie theaters instead of just via online platforms. In which case, there’s going to be a need for more “destination movies” to compete with the success of this one. Which has firmly marked its territory, for better or worse, on Sydney (Australia and Sweeney).

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Shakespearean insults to make you feel superior to your enemies (30 GIFs)

    Shakespearean insults to make you feel superior to your enemies (30 GIFs)

    Say what you want about William Shakespeare, but the guy could throw insults like a champ. Sure he was long-winded, invented his own words, and according to BBC he couldn’t even spell his own name properly. But the prolific Playwright sure knew how to put someone down.

    We’ve collected some of the most iconic and stinging insults straight from William’s pen.

    Zach Nading

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