a midsummer's night

This guy was juggling with swords and he said he learned juggling all over the world, including Ireland, in which he juggles while staggering about drunkenly, and Texas, in which he puts the swords on the ground and picks them up and moves them really slowly.

There was a huge crowd there, partially because Romeo and Juliet is a lot more accessible and well-known than the other plays, especially Love's Labour's Lost, which is all wordplay, and partially because it was an actual nice day. It's not getting me any closer to my goal of seeing all the Shakespeare plays by 2022, or more realistically, 2032, but it is a really good play.

A woman has "a heart's a heavy burden" which is a quote by Sophie, along with picture of Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle. Her name may or may not be Molly and she may or may not be one of a twin with matching tattoos. Her friend lacked the Howl's Moving Castle quote as far as I could tell and instead had "depending on where you begin the story" on her shoulder and had some words on her wrist. Elsewhere was a woman with black tattoos on her arm and Totoro on her leg, who says that My Neighbor Totoro always cheers her up when she's feeling crappy.
A woman with green hair had Hashmal's sigil as a pendant. She wasn't at the play, she was merely crossing the street.
A man had pale neon lime hair.
A man had purple to pink to orange to chartreuse hair and a black beard.
There's a dog named Wicket and a dog named Dan.
There was a shaven-headed woman with rose tattoos.
A woman with braids had an I ♥ science t-shirt.
I can read Greek even if I did mistake a sigma for an omicron.
I should recognize πίστης because I've played Xenosaga, though they mistranslated it as πειθος, which apparently means persuasion.
And it's σοφια that means wisdom. Πίστης means faith. I can't read Hindi at all.
One of the guys working on the show compared himself to Batman because he had everything he needed in that belt: a medkit, a knife, a batarang, some shark repellent bat spray, some bat carousel reversal spray, anti-Penguin gas pills, slippery goo.
A woman with teal and violet hair is from Verona but has never seen Romeo and Juliet. She has consummate v's tattooed on her arm and a word that barely looked like it was written in the Latin alphabet. It looked more Balinese if you ask me.
I overheard a conversation about how Jesus can just get drunk on his own blood and he doesn't have to go to the liquor store.
Emily was like "screw Patrick" because she only had enough money to rent two chairs.
I was on temporary guard duty and the people near me were playing a game where you roll dice and come up with stories based on the pictograms that show up. The father's story was something about gravity going wrong.

The Desperate Measures Street Band were playing nearby before the show.

They didn't play Brush Up Your Shakespeare, which was unexpected. They played some songs that reference Romeo and Juliet, which I believe were by Taylor Swift and The Reflections, but not Exit Music (For A Film) by Radiohead. Speaking of brushing up your Shakespeare, "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" means "why r u a montague thats sucks," not "where are you, Romeo?"

I'm pretty sure this is the first play by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company I've seen that's unambiguously set during Shakespeare's time.

hi. ok so like two houses are pissed at eacvhother. there like 'u suck" and then the others like "no u suck. then this dood wants to do this chikc. but her dad r like "lol no he sucks" omfg this is 2 hours long. screw u i quyti.

So it opens with a street brawl between the Capulets and Montagues. The Prince shows up and tells them that there will be consequences if this violence continues, and meanwhile, Juliet Capulet is betrothed to Paris, and meanwhile, Romeo Montague is brooding over Rosaline not returning his love so Benvolio tells him he and Mercutio are going to gatecrash to a masquerade party hosted by the Lord and Lady Capulet. Romeo attends because he thinks Rosaline will be there too. I guess there's no real problem with those two partially because Rosaline might only be a niece of the Lord and Lady Capulet by marriage and partially because Romeo didn't get very far with Rosaline before he met Juliet and forgot Rosaline existed. Tybalt is not pleased but Lord Capulet tells him to lighten up. Romeo and Juliet care nothing for family rivalries and so they profess their love in a perfect sonnet and get married that morrow. Tybalt kills Mercutio and Romeo attempts to talk things out with Tybalt. Tybalt pays him no heed and Romeo kills him instead. The Prince exiles Romeo to Mantua. Friar Laurence has a plan: Juliet fakes her death. Alas, Romeo wasn't told about that part because the messenger was quarantined due to plague, procures poison and returns to Verona to be with Juliet. Romeo kills Paris and then drinks the poison. The commotion awakens Juliet, who stabs herself with a sword because Romeo drank all the poison. The Prince orders the two families to shake hands and make up. At the end, the walls are aglow with tiny lights, as if they have ascended to the heavens and became constellations.
The Prince was played by a Jamaican woman and Tybalt performed in The Tempest and Friar Laurence was Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. There was a woman named Chris but not a Blueberry nor an Ewinda nor a Davina nor a Sitiké.

They played Mother Tongue by Dead Can Dance during the masquerade, where revelers in costumes, including a giant animated skeleton and devil and a silver fish, paraded along the pathways, and they played Carnival is Over when Romeo fell for Juliet.

Hannah and her twin sister Olivia remember when I drew them back in April. I was having a hard time remembering the context but I looked through my sketchbook and I'm pretty sure it was when Emma had that concert in Jamaica Plain. Her friend was perched on the seat railing thing. It was one of those older shakier trains so I'm even more impressed.

Elizabeth said that the longer I do this, the more likely I am to run into someone I've drawn because there are only so many people in the world. Her shirt said "science is real. black lives matter. no human is illegal. love is love. women's rights are human rights. kindness is everything." She wore a team Capulet pin and her friend/girlfriend/traveling companion wore a Team Montague pin. I feel like the Montagues are more sympathetic but that might be because we see a lot more Capulet family politics. In fact, in the performance I saw at the Strand Theatre, Lord and Lady Montague were removed entirely. Elizabeth looks rather androgynous so I was expecting a more androgynous name like perhaps Ashley or Sydney or Samantha but I have no idea why I should think that.


burning question: How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath to say to me that thou art out of breath?