CONTORTED PASTA

Hamlet's Tunes

Mon, 24 Mar 2014 07:24:46 GMT

As any reasonably long-term reader of this blog will know, I am head-over-heels in love with the ISC's production of Hamlet, and as anyone who's known me in person will know, I never tire of writhing over how good it was. (It was so good.) Perhaps someday I will finally get to writing down everything so fantastic about it, and my Pixar Story Notes on Hamlet, which are not what you think. But that day is not today.

The topic came up again when I found out that, this week, Radio 4 is finally airing the Hamlet they recorded a while back. I resigned myself, that frigid August night at the back of the crowd in Griffith Park when I saw the ISC the first time, to the fact I would never enjoy another Hamlet again: despite forcing myself to 'just try it' a couple times since then my conclusion has been correct. But I'll give this one a go because it was directed by Marc Beeby and has Carl Prekopp in it, which are both good indicators of a quality radio production.*

In the spirit of the occasion I thought I'd share the Hamlet playlist I put together in the depths of my infatuation in 2012 ... It's a combination of music that evokes the atmosphere of the play and songs Hamlet might have on his iPod.

( HAMLET!!! )

Well great, now I'm all hopped up on Hamlet again, how am I supposed to sleep?

*Sadly Mr Prekopp is not playing the title role. It's everyone's loss, really.
**To be frank, this is mainly on my playlist because in the film of Copenhagen, it features prominently in the scene which concludes with the line 'The whole appearance of Elsinore, you said, was changed by knowing that Hamlet had lived there ... every dark corner there reminds us of the darkness in the human soul.' But I think it works all the same.

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Iago + Emilia = OTP

Mon, 30 Dec 2013 02:58:53 GMT

I've been sitting on this drawing for three years and only just got around to putting some shading on it to make it readable. The intent was just to throw down some rough values but it turned into a two-day painting project ... I suppose it's earned it, waiting so long, and I'm still proud of the drawing, which I can't say for much I did that long ago.

Click for to make biggar!

This is based on the deliciously tense/flirty reading of this scene in the Arkangel recording of Othello, which I will be posting to Tumblr tomorrow morning, but it is personal policy to give my handful of DW/LJ readers first crack at the art.

Longtime readers of this blog will know I'm really not into romantic stuff and certainly not shipping of any stripe, but this scene (and this reading of it) give these already interesting characters a very interesting – and very real – relationship, which makes them even more interesting, which kind of isn't fair because they have so much already but I don't care I will eat it all up.

In other news, thanks to my mum's encyclopedic memory for names (a trait which, sadly, I have not inherited), I now know who the actor was whose Iago seared itself so strongly on my visual memory that I could recall him, to some degree, ten years later: meet Alexis Baigue. Mr Baigue, if you've come here to find why your video suddenly had a spike in traffic, thank you for being so awesome in Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, and I hope you're not too weirded out by being immortalised as the personification of evil. Nothing personal, I promise.

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It's Cassio Time

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 06:51:09 GMT

Strangely enough, I've always had a distinct image of Cassio in my head, though I'm pretty awful at drawing conventionally attractive people (and if he's "framed to make women false" I don't have much wiggle room on that) so never got very far with him. Then one afternoon when I was listening to Othello and doodling, I ate a magic Pocky and BOOM – Cassio. Or at least, something not atrocious which could serve as a starting place. (Be sure to hit the cut after this image because there's more!)(unless you don't want to see more, of course, nobody's making you do anything.)

( More beneath the cut! )

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Roderigo Kitty

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 06:32:57 GMT

When I tried to describe my sister's cat to an Othello-enabled friend of mine, she said 'Oh, so he's basically Roderigo.' Yes, yes he is exactly Roderigo. So of course I had no choice but to model Roderigo on Elliot.

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