Personal rant incoming â ď¸
Itâs 1 am, yes, and I am perfectly awake for to be up late is to be up early!
I donât know which came first, my reading of If We Were Villains followed by an all-consuming desire to read so much Shakespeare that Iâd constantly have quotes floating around in my mind OR my interest in Shakespeare which was the reason If We Were Villains became my favorite book.
What I keep circling back to is the ability to quote Shakespeare on the fly and not be stared down like a madman or completely ignored by oblivious listeners. IWWV characters do it freely and everyone knows (1) what they mean, (2) what theyâre referencing. For the record, I donât blame ppl for feeling neutral toward something Iâm crazy about. I just need to meet more ppl crazy like me.
âFinishing someone elseâs sentenceâ isnât the phrase Iâm looking for. It feels like a sport, like a racket-related game that relies on two steady players to rally back and forth. It requires rapport, teamwork, but not necessarily prior relationship. It isnât competition, the goal is to forge a mutual connection.
In 2024, I met someone who had played Orsino ages ago and we were able to exchange lines despite having never met before.
Oliv: Still so constant, lord.
Thatâs even more proof that Shakespeare unites actors (even across generations) and brings people together through language. This is something not many other forms of media can do, sure, the actors of spidermen may be able to connect, but everyone else is just an impression.
It hits different when the words have been spoken by numerous actors, various celebrities, and passed down from person to person all the way for you to inherit and make your own.
For context, yesterday I got to talking with someone who had previously played Benedick (completely different production, completely different cast) and we jumped straight into a banterous scene with no prior preparation.
Bea: I wonder that you will still be talking Signor Benedick, no body marks you
Dick: What, my dear lady disdain, are you yet living?
The feeling is electrifying. I could see their characters resurface, the memories of their well-learned-lines swimming in their eyes. I feel drunk on the thought of it.
What Oliver and co. had was so SO precious and rare. That is the friend group I crave more than words can witness or your thoughts can guess and it kills me that they pretty much lost contact. All the bonds Iâve made that come even remotely close to theirs Iâve tried to hold onto with a white-knuckle death grip.
It is especially valuable when you meet a lover.
When Shakespeare writes in iambic pentameter, there are times he breaks up lines between lovers to indicate to the audience that they complete each other. Language is so intimate. Immediate bonds are formed between two halves of a whole. Rhymes and rhythms. Rests and stops. Yins and yangs that are somehow interchangeable.
Like, what do you mean we just met but our heartbeats have synced to words we shouldnât still remember? What do you mean Beatrice and Benedick, Lysander and Hermia, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Horatio will always find each other no matter who plays them or who directs them??
The best way I can describe it is Sleeping Beautyâs Once Upon a Dream.
