assigned am I to be the English scourge
Day #6: Your favorite villainess female villain
Does anyone actually use the word "villainess" anymore? It is a stupid word and I hate it.
Anyway! Having gone with an obvious choice yesterday, I am going to be weird and unconventional and quite probably sacrilegious today and pick Joan Pucelle from 1 Henry VI. Obviously in real life Jeanne d'Arc was not at all villainous but rather an awesome heroine and a canonized saint and also a Victim of the Patriarchy, but that is real life and this is Shakespeare which is very much its own thing and a product of its time/place. Or something.
The thing I like about Shakespeare's Joan, at any rate, is that she really does feel like she is the heroine of her own story, which is not something I always get from evil Shakespearean women, and she is also badass and energetic has a sense of humor, as well as being basically the only competent French person in the play unless you count Margaret, which I am not sure I do. Actually, the RSC has taken to doubling Joan and Margaret, which is the sort of thing I like but am not sure I would actually do if I were casting it -- I did think about Margaret for this question but structurally speaking I don't think she's properly a villain, since she does awful things but so does everyone and I don't think we're intended to side with Team York especially, since quite frankly they are also horrible, whereas we are meant to root for the English. Obviously.
Also it is vaguely amusing to see directors attempt to reconcile the historical Jeanne with Shakespeare's version, which generally involves rewriting the demon-summoning scene in Act V so it's a Marian invocation. It never works. Michael Bogdanov left in "I'll lop a member off and give it you / In earnest of further benefit," even, which was just stupid. I think my favorite is Eileen Atkins in Age of Kings, who is just fabulously intense even though a lot of her best material gets cut (turns out that if you deal with 1HVI by removing all of Talbot's material, most of Joan's scenes don't make sense anymore).
(I should talk more about performances in this thing. It's fun!)
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
>Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line
Does anyone actually use the word "villainess" anymore? It is a stupid word and I hate it.
Anyway! Having gone with an obvious choice yesterday, I am going to be weird and unconventional and quite probably sacrilegious today and pick Joan Pucelle from 1 Henry VI. Obviously in real life Jeanne d'Arc was not at all villainous but rather an awesome heroine and a canonized saint and also a Victim of the Patriarchy, but that is real life and this is Shakespeare which is very much its own thing and a product of its time/place. Or something.
The thing I like about Shakespeare's Joan, at any rate, is that she really does feel like she is the heroine of her own story, which is not something I always get from evil Shakespearean women, and she is also badass and energetic has a sense of humor, as well as being basically the only competent French person in the play unless you count Margaret, which I am not sure I do. Actually, the RSC has taken to doubling Joan and Margaret, which is the sort of thing I like but am not sure I would actually do if I were casting it -- I did think about Margaret for this question but structurally speaking I don't think she's properly a villain, since she does awful things but so does everyone and I don't think we're intended to side with Team York especially, since quite frankly they are also horrible, whereas we are meant to root for the English. Obviously.
Also it is vaguely amusing to see directors attempt to reconcile the historical Jeanne with Shakespeare's version, which generally involves rewriting the demon-summoning scene in Act V so it's a Marian invocation. It never works. Michael Bogdanov left in "I'll lop a member off and give it you / In earnest of further benefit," even, which was just stupid. I think my favorite is Eileen Atkins in Age of Kings, who is just fabulously intense even though a lot of her best material gets cut (turns out that if you deal with 1HVI by removing all of Talbot's material, most of Joan's scenes don't make sense anymore).
(I should talk more about performances in this thing. It's fun!)
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
>Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line