#kwlt

Welcome back to another episode of Get the Reference! This time, we’re featuring the timeless tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Get your handkerchiefs ready and join us for a truly depressing five days (yes, all of this sadness happens in all of five days).

We open Day 1 with a lovesick and seemingly inconsolable Romeo (this will be a recurring trend) getting some good advice from his good friend Benvolio encouraging him to move on from his latest hopeless crush.

Thankfully it doesn’t take long for Romeo to sneak into a ball and fall mutually in love with the beautiful Juliet (yay!). Unfortunately, it just so happens that Romeo’s family and Juliet’s family kind of have this feud thing going on that throws a bit of a wrench into things.

Oh, and to top things off, the Prince threatens to start killing folks if the two families can’t stop feuding… Yikes! If Romeo had a Facebook page I’m sure his relationship status would be “It’s complicated.”

So anyways, at the end of the night they agree to get married… Wait, what!? … Nope, I read that right… They agree to get married. Wow. Okay, on Day 2 they find Friar Laurence and ask him to marry them that afternoon, which for some reason he agrees to do.

In the meantime, Juliet’s cousin Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel, but Romeo’s good buddy Mercutio steps in and accepts the challenge instead. Fun fact: he loses and dies in Romeo’s arms. Bummer. Always a thinker, Romeo kills Tybalt in revenge and finds himself banished by the Prince. Oops.

Well Romeo, being not super pumped about his banishment, tries to kill himself, but luckily the good Friar talks him down by promising to make his marriage public and get the Prince to pardon him. Romeo and Juliet get a bit of time to celebrate, and then Romeo accepts his banishment and leaves Verona.

Alas, not all goes to plan, as Day 3 opens with Juliet’s father arranging her a marriage to a bloke named Paris (who happens to be the Prince’s cousin) as a way to try to get her out of mourning. Does anyone else think that marriage might be a bit excessive as a pick-me-up? Ice cream might have been a better choice.

Don’t fret though; Friar Laurence has a foolproof plan to fix all of this. See, Juliet just has to take a sleeping potion to make her family think she’s dead for 42 hours (that’s an oddly specific time by the way) so that Laurence can get a message to Romeo telling him to return by the time Juliet awakes. I’m sure this can’t end poorly.

Surprise: it doesn’t go well! Juliet agrees to marry Paris, but her father gets so excited that he moves the wedding up a day! Damn. With some pretty tight timelines looming at this point, Juliet takes the poison a day early. As Day 4 opens, her family finds her and places her in the family tomb. Just as we’re getting back on track, the plague has to start making a mess everywhere, and Laurence’s message can’t get to Romeo.

Alright, so the rest of Day 4 ends up being a bit of a rollercoaster, so I’ll sum it up:

Romeo doesn’t get the Friar’s message, but he does learn of Juliet’s death. Not good.

He returns to Verona with some poison (this is starting to look bad) and enters Juliet’s tomb in the middle of the night (looking even worse).

Unfortunately, Paris confronts him in the tomb, so of course, Romeo fights and kills him. The body count is starting to rise now, and for some reason I’m thinking that maybe the whole “pardon” thing might be off the table for good old Romeo.

It turns out that pardon is irrelevant, because Romeo promptly takes the poison and dies. Seems a bit dramatic for four days into a relationship.

Unfortunately, it only gets worse, as Juliet awakens that night (pretty sure that wasn’t 42 hours), sees Romeo dead, and chooses to stab herself before the Friar can stop her. Yep, you heard that right. Cue Day 5, in which everyone wakes up to find the dead couple (also the dead Paris) and gets the whole story from the Friar, and then they all live happily ever after, in peace. No, really, that’s basically what happens.

Time for another Get the Reference! Like last time, we`ll be hitting up Shakespeare, but this time we’ll be looking at The Tempest.

The Tempest is basically a fairy tale, but like, Shakespearean (and actually with fewer fairies than many of his other works). You’ve got a princess whose only goal is to get married, a magical king/wizard, a character named Ariel, and an evil character who is literally a monster.

(not that Ariel)

The only character who we really care about is Prospero, mostly because he’s a badass wizard who makes literal magical spirits do his will. Prospero was a duke forever ago, but then his brother and the king exiled him and he and his daughter Miranda ended up on a deserted island. He forces a spirit into indentured servitude by helping him out, and constantly promises to free him…..eventually.

The worst part, of course, of being stranded on a deserted island is that your daughter can never get married (#patriarchy), but luckily Prospero is a wizard and manages to figure out a way of both getting her married and getting his revenge on his brother and king (#badass).

With his super awesome magical powers, he whips up a storm (ahem, TEMPEST) that strands all parties of interest (plus a couple clowns for the comedic relief factor) on his island.

Wacky hijinks ensue, including…

1) Miranda falling in love wayyy too quickly for Prospero’s liking (poor girl has literally never seen a man before who was not a) her father or b) an actual monster)

2) The monster Caliban convincing the drunk clowns to help him out fighting Prospero, which (spoiler alert) fails

3) Prospero’s slave Ariel causing the naughty nobles to freak the F out.

Despite being a comedy, there’s only one marriage, but I guess nobody really dies so it can’t be a tragedy and it sure as hell isn’t a history. Everybody ends up liking everyone else and being happy ever after, because fairy tale.

Part of the humour of Scrooge Macbeth is all of the references to Shakespeare’s plays. To help you out, we’ve created some quick summaries of what you need to know.

Up first (appropriately): Macbeth!

Macbeth starts out just like you would expect any tale of Scottish horror to do so: with some weird ladies chanting in the woods.

They tell Macbeth and his buddy Banquo that Macbeth is not only going to get a new nobility title, but that he’s eventually going to be king, but oh by the way Banquo’s kids are going to be king also. They laugh it off, as anyone would who encountered strange chanting women in the woods, but when Macbeth actually receives the new title they predicted they get pretty freaked out.

The current king, pleased with Macbeth’s performance at war, decides to help him celebrate his new title by inviting himself over to the Macbeth castle without notice (jerk). Macbeth writes a letter to his wife, letting her know that they’re all coming, and oh by the way can you believe those weird ladies in the woods said I would be king?

So you know that couple, the one where they are all over each other all the time and call each other “babe” and are so sickly supportive of each other you want to barf all over their happiness?

That’s basically Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, when she hears about the possibility of this king thing, gets all hot and bothered and insists that they murder the current king that night. Macbeth, who is not very good at saying no to his wife, hesitantly agrees then proceeds to be severely unstable and hallucinatory for the rest of the play.

Despite being so gung ho about regicide and insisting that she’s more of a man than Macbeth due to her resolve, Lady Macbeth of course cannot murder him herself because he looked like her father while he was sleeping. The Macbeths pin the murder on two servants they got blackout drunk, and the king’s sons run away, so the Macbeth’s should be feeling pretty good that they are now the king and queen. Except (surprise) they’re both a little messed up and are paranoid about literally everyone. BRING ON THE DEATH LIST:

1) King Duncan and his servants: as previously discussed

2) Banquo: Macbeth’s war buddy from before; the Macbeths hire murderers to kill him and his son just in case the weird chanting ladies were right about them becoming kings. They fail at killing Banquo’s son though #fail

3) Macduff’s entire family: Macduff is another Scottish nobleman who starts to suspect that maybe Macbeth and his wife are not super great people. When he goes off to find the princes who ran away, his entire family is killed in a scene that can be very depressing depending on how evil the director chooses to be in their interpretation of Macduff’s children

4) Lady Macbeth: kills herself because, surprise, arranging various murders is not good for the psyche and blood tends to stain

5)Young Siward: a random English dude that Macbeth kills in battle at the end who, while not important, is still a death and therefore still belongs on this list

6) Macbeth: briefly king but permanently killed to death and beheaded by Macduff despite thinking he was invincible

Really, a great Scottish romp replete with kooky characters and unbelievable situations.