From armour to corsets to flowy pink dresses.
A stage play created by Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube fame.The plot revolves around Prince Harry, Jen and Sam, who realize they are stuck in a stage plays multiverse, in which anyone can wake up from their role at any time, thanks to an IKEA decor-lookalike MacGuffin. Hilarity, angst, despair, and happiness ensue.
The play ran in Southwark Playhouse in London from 15 September to 8 October 2022, then was released on February 16th 2023 on streaming service Nebula and is currently considered for TV adaptation in United States.
Tropes found in the play include:
- Always Save the Girl: Upon learning Hotspur's eventual fate in the play, namely dying and being martyred after giving an inspiring speech, Jen becomes determined to prevent this, even though breaking Hotspur out of her role means messing up the play and throwing a wrench into her and Sam's plan to escape.
- And I Must Scream: Sam reveals that this was her situation prior to breaking out of her role: she was a Bit Character in Antony and Cleopatra who only had one line (a less-than-ten-syllable line, at that) and who had no choice but to repeat that line in performance after performance for a very long time until she broke out of her role out of sheer frustration and desire to be bigger and better than that.
- Better than a Bare Bulb: Thanks to the play's extremely meta narrative, there are a lot of lampshades thrown onto tropes related to the way plays work, including
Acting for Two (Hotspur becoming aware that her father and King Henry are played by the same actor), timeskips (Hotspur notes that she met Jen months ago, but it also feels like it just happened), and events happening offscreen (Kate notes that she delivered Hotspur's sword to her, but remembers nothing of the actual journey prior to arriving since it happened offscreen). - Brutal Honesty: Jen has a tendency to cut to the heart of a problem: when talking with Kate and Hal over their problems, she's rather blunt in her encouragement, with her advice to Hal being essentially "you're gay, so what?". Notably, both Hal and Kate are grateful for her directness, with both thanking her for it.
- Central Theme: Roles. All the characters in the play are occupying a role that they're supposedly meant to embody, but are only doing so because it's what's expected of them, and it makes them miserable to do so: Hotspur is a deeply-closeted trans woman who overcompensates with an aggressive personality, Kate languishes as a Satellite Character for her husband despite being educated and ambitious, Hal tries to impress his disapproving father by hiding his sexuality and trying to live up to his status as a prince, etc. In this way, the roles in the play are symbolic of societal roles, and in the end, the characters only find real happiness by breaking out of them and entering the real world, symbolizing a rejection of the role society imposes on them and living their lives in a way that will make them happy.
- Costume Evolution: Characters' costumes change over the course of the play to reflect their emotional state and Character Development. For example, Kate begins wearing more modern clothing to symbolize her growing independence, while Hotspur's armor begins degrading to reveal feminine clothing underneath, symbolizing her growing awareness of her status as a trans woman.
- Costume Porn: Nascar-check tights, armours, Y2K dresses, bralettes layered in tulle tops with lettuce-edge, corset belts, pink flowy dresses with asyymetrical hems, tartan, crowns that double as femboy chokers, AND more.
- Female Misogynist: Hotspur, a trans woman, is very dismissive of feminine qualities and the people who possess them, and is distant towards her wife Kate. Justified since she's deeply closeted and likely overcompensating.
- Identical Stranger: A case related closely to Acting for Two: King Henry and Northumberland are played by the same actor, but nobody seems to notice this until they start breaking out of their roles. When the walls between the two characters fall down, he, Hotspur, and Hal are all momentarily confused about whose father he actually is, before he decides he'll be both their fathers.
- I Just Want to Be Special: This is eventually revealed to be an aspect of Sam's character: she has self-worth issues and envies Jen for being young and pretty, as well as more comfortable in her own skin. It doesn't help that she spent an indeterminate but apparently very long time as a Bit Character in the play she was in, speaking one short line and being so frustrated that she broke out of her role through a sheer desire to be more important.
- Large Ham: A lot. And no wonder, given how much of the play quotes various Shakespeare works...
- Lost in Character: This was the case for both Sam and Jen, with both being people from the real world having been somehow pulled into the play multiverse and being transplanted into a role, believing themselves to genuinely be their character. Them breaking out of it and trying to escape is where the play begins.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Jen functions as one for most of the cast, being a free-spirited, blunt, and eccentric (by the cast's standards, since her attitudes and values are modern while theirs are Shakespearean) woman whose advice and encouragement starts their questioning of their place in society. Deconstructed when her help causes the characters to break out of their roles, causing the play to go Off the Rails and eventually to break entirely, catapulting everyone into the entirely separate play of Hamlet and drastically setting Jen and Sam back in trying to escape.
- Medium Awareness: A central mechanic in the play: the characters are initially unaware that they're in a play, but as Jen's interference begins to affect them, they gradually become more aware of the artificial nature of their world.
- Nice Girl: Flightiness and impulsivity aside, Jen is a friendly, pleasant, and kind person who sits with the characters in the play and tries to help them with their issues.
- No Fourth Wall: While the fourth wall is shaky from the start due to the meta nature of the play, with the characters seeing the audience and even talking to them at points, the opening of the portal causes it to shatter entirely, to the point that Sam introduces herself to one of the audience members before gleefully leaving for the real world.
- Off the Rails: Jen's well-meaning advice to the characters (and connecting with them physically, which causes them to slowly develop Medium Awareness) causes the play to go awry, as characters are not where they're supposed to be...which is a problem, since the portal to the real world will only open near the end of the play provided it goes the way it's supposed to. The play eventually breaks entirely, throwing the characters into an entirely separate play (Hamlet) and setting back Sam and Jen's escape plan considerably.
- Satellite Character: Kate is one for Hotspur: as she notes later in the play, she really only exists to help Hotspur's character develop and has no real internal complexity on her own. Her Character Development over the course of the play involves breaking out of this and becoming more independent and complex.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: While Hotspur doesn't look bad exactly, presenting as a man (which doesn't suit her) combined with her bad attitude is somewhat off-putting. By contrast, after escaping to the real world and presenting with a feminine style, the change is astonishing.
- Shout-Out: One of the characters just blurts out "That's coconuts" – a ContraPoints catchphrase. Also known as Natalie Wynn, ContraPoints is a trans woman and a fellow content creator of Abigail Thorn's.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Hotspur is aggressive, hot-blooded, and misogynistic, but this is the result of overcompensation for trying to fit the role of a man despite being a trans woman: as the play goes on, it becomes more and more apparent that forcing herself to do this is making her utterly miserable. It makes her Took a Level in Cheerfulness upon reaching the real world and getting to live as a woman all the more cathartic.
- Split-Personality Merge: King Henry and Northumberland are played by the same actor: when the characters fully break out of their roles near the play's end, there's a moment of confusion as he, Hotspur, and Hal try to figure out which of their fathers he actually is before he decides to act as both.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: By the end of the play, Hotspur has done this, the direct result of escaping to the real world and being allowed to live as a woman.
- Transparent Closet: Played with: while Jen clocks Hotspur as a closeted trans woman very quickly, none of the other characters (including Hotspur herself) seem to catch this until they begin breaking out of their roles. Justified in that not only does Jen have a modern perspective while the other characters have Shakespearean values and wouldn't be even aware that being trans is possible, but the characters being stuck in their roles means they instinctively perceive Hotspur as a man since "he" is written that way in the text.
- Trans Tribulations: The main plot point. Sam and Jen are trans women with varying amounts of security in their gender, while Harry Hotspur goes through slow feminization as the plot progresses. In the end Hotspur arrives on stage as an out trans woman.
- Trapped in TV Land: A theater example: Sam and Jen are real people trapped in a multiverse where each world is a Shakespearean play, and their motivation is to escape back to the real world.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: An unusual case: characters in the play notice that Jen has a strange way of speaking and unusual values (since she's a woman from the modern era and Henry IV takes place in the 1400s), but her decidedly modern outfit doesn't raise any eyebrows.
- Wham Line: Hotspur falling into modern speech patterns and talking to the audience, revealing that she's truly beginning to break out of her role in the play.Hotspur: (to an audience member) Who the fuck are you?
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Sam initially refers to the characters in the play besides herself and Jen as "antibodies", essentially receptacles for the role they fill and not being properly human. However, Jen eventually comes to disagree with this, noting that the characters are able to hold conversations outside of the lines of their play and are clearly struggling with their own personal issues and argues that, while not from the real world initially, they're just as sentient outside their roles as her and Sam, and should be allowed to escape as well.
- When She Smiles: Hotspur rarely smiles, and when she does, it's usually a cocky grin or a sneer. It makes her genuine smile when out in the real world and living as a woman so much brighter.
- Why Are You Not My Son?: King Henry clearly feels this way towards Hotspur in favor of his actual son, Hal, which breeds a great deal of resentment and approval-seeking in Hal.
