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thedramaclubs · 3 years

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Changing lives (reprise)

Summery: Roman and Remus get the rest of the reviews and it was horrible that it closed their show. They soon meet one of their old friends and Remus’s husband meets them and soon they find something on Twitter to change their lives

Ships: Logicality, Prinxiety, demus/dukeceit

When their singing

Remus-green

Roman-red

Janus-orange

C!thomas-pink

All-purple

“The rest of the reviews are in! New York post, associated press, New York times” exclaimed Joan with ther phone in the air everyone started to get excited and looked on their phones as Roman and Remus are about to listen to how great their musical is........or so they thought.

Everyone’s faces changed to a sad and disappointed look and started leaving

“What? What’s happening?” said Roman as he watch everyone look at him and his brother in sadness.

“This is not a review anyone wants when you have shitty advance sales. This is gonna close us” said Joan

Roman gasp and Remus was shocked “What didn’t they like was it the hip hop?”

“Yeah but not that”

“For gods sake sakes Joan read it.” The twins sat down as Joan read the horrible reviews.

“Ok here’s the highlights, “Remus Allen’s FDR might just be the most insulting misguided, offensive, and laughable performance that this reviewer has ever had the squirming misfortune to endure. Emphasis on the insulting because he try to make him self look like that he was trying to give me intrusive thoughts about FDR.”

“That’s how I normally look what the hell?!?!”

“I mean it’s not so bad” said Roman as he played with his dress

“DO HIM ALREADY!!” “What I’m just saying.”

“Watching Romans Eleanor Roosevelt, corking out a heavy-handed message of activism, is like paying an aging drag queen to shove a syurp-soaked American flag down my throat. And also Eleanor should have been played by a women”

Roman was on the verge of tears “Thats not criticism that’s a personal attack.” His voice cracked and Remus hugged him as he shed a tear

“If your considering buying a ticket to the show do yourself a favor. By a few feet of good heavy rope instead and then go hang yourself”

“Holy fuck, oh god, poopy. Was the show that bad?”

“It’s not the show it’s you two. Your just not likeable.”

“What?” They said simultaneously

“Nobody likes a narcissist.” They sat in silence over what they just heard. “Leave it to me I’ll go and try to change the narrative once again” Joan then left the twins alone in the bullding

“I hate this world” “this just hurts my heart, Where did everybody go?”

They talked over each other as the walk to the bar to find a man in a pink suit. “What can I get ya?” said the man “Yola mezcal blackberry smash” said the twins at the same time. “My condolences Roman. But remember you do have friends” said the man making their drinks.”

“Thank you. Who are you?”

“Thomas Sanders.......we’ve done five shows together.”

“Ugh Thomas went to Juilliard and won’t shut up about.” Whispered Remus as he told Roman “Oh right Thomas. Thomas haha....... why are you dressed like waiter?” I’m in between gigs at the moment. Honestly Roman I feel adrift as i did in my days before Juilliard” Remus proceed to chug a drink that was on the table as Thomas continued to talk about Juilliard and the two were just over it.

“Still I have played hamlet and I’m still known as that guy from the beloved early aughts sitcom “Talk to the hand” I question everything about my existence” As he continues to rant about the past what they didn’t notice as a man in a golden sequiny dress with a black hat and a yellow ribbon tied on it with long golden brown hair walking their way

“Hey guys!”

Roman and Remus turned around to see Janus Allen, Remus’s husband

“Jannie!!!” Remus picked up Janus and spun him around and soon dipped him into a kiss which turn into a make out session. “Ahem I know you two lovebirds haven’t seen each other all day but can it wait we’re still here ya know.” They both looked at Roman and giggle a little from embarrassment “Sorry your show closed on opening night again. Welcome to the world of the unemployed,hit me up next.”

“I thought you were in Chicago?” asked Remus “I totally didn’t quit just now 20 years in the chorus and still wouldn’t let me play Roxie Hart and now their letting Tina Louise play her” “That bitch is still alive” said Remus as he chugs another drink

“We’re wasting our lives.” Said Roman as they are all slightly drunk “Ok I refuse to give up we’re still celebrities we still have power.” “Yeah well The Times casted you out” said Thomas as he poured another drink “Yep they wrote you off as aging narcissist and I’m only allowed to call Remus that.” “I still don’t understand what’s wrong with that.” Said Roman as he drinks even more. “You know what we will become celebrity arsonist.” “Babe it’s call celebrity activist we are not burning down another building like last time.” “Ok everyone think of causes.”

“Poverty”

“World hunger”

“Too big we need something we can handle”

“Let’s see whats trending” said Janus “Trump, trump, trump, ooo how about this boy he’s all over Twitter. His names Patton Heart. He’s from edgewater, Indiana. He’s gay. He wanted to take his boyfriend to the highschool prom and the pta went apeshit and canceled it.”

We are now in Edgewater, Indiana and Patton Heart is watching the head of the pta, Mrs Green being interviewed. “We have very strict rules for prom. Young ladies must wear non-revealing dresses. Young men must wear suits or tuxes. And if a student chooses to bring a date it must be of the opposite sex” “Can’t you just ban this student?” “Well we’ve been advised that there may be some legal repercussions if we prevent this boy from attending so although it breaks my heart we have no choice to cancel prom.” We move to Mr Virgil Hawkins the principal “The first thing I’m going to do is contact the state attourney this is not about school rules this is a civil right case.” “Wait seriously?” Said Patton. “Yes and if word gets out people will get mad and next thing you know some modern day Eleanor Roosevelt is gonna come and hell’s gonna break loose.”

We move back to New York “We got to go down their and raise holy hell” exclaimed Roman “We’ll be the biggest thing to happen to Indiana since........whatever’s happen in Indiana are you with me!?!” Said Remus as he and Roman start stand on top of a table they all cheered “We’ll get Joan to tag along to find us a venue” “I just book us a non-union tour of Godspell and I goes through Indiana we can ride on the bus.” Said Thomas “Can we do this guys” Said Janus “You bet your sweet MILF ass we can jannie”

🎶 We are gonna prove that in this day and age being gay isn’t a crime. This is out moment to change the world one homo 🎶

🎶Homo🎶

🎶Homo 🎶

🎶Homo🎶

🎶At a time🎶

🎶 we’re gonna help that little homo, whether he likes it or not, when your a legendary thespian 🎶

🎶First you help the distressed 🎶

🎶Then you help the distraught🎶

🎶We’re gonna go to where the necks are red and lack of dentistry thrives, Why sing and dance when you can take a stance🎶

🎶And know your truly changing lives. We’re gonna March until that town looks like the end of act one in les mis. You don’t gotta have a Ph.D in psych to know that people kowtow to the folks in the biz🎶

🎶We’re gonna teach’em to be more PC the minute or group arrives🎶

🎶That’s right🎶

🎶Those fist-pumping🎶

🎶Bible-thumping🎶

🎶Spam-eating🎶

🎶Cousin-humping🎶

🎶Cow-tipping🎶

🎶Shoulder-slumping🎶

🎶Tea-bagging🎶

🎶Jesus-jumping🎶

🎶Losers and their inbred wives. They’ll learn compassion🎶

🎶And better fashion🎶

🎶Once we at last start changing lives!!!!🎶

🎶Now let’s go help that dyke🎶

People to tag/ @artissijules

This took a long time to write

#sanders sides #logicality #thomas sanders #livy writes #janus sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #c!thomas #demus #dukeceit #sanders sides the prom au #ts joan #prinxiety

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joefoley · 5 years

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The Lost Promise, and Puzzling Legacy, of River Phoenix

On the 25th anniversary of his death, the actor, activist, and reluctant heartthrob is an unevenly remembered icon of 90s alternative culture.

By Gavin Edwards for Vanity Fair

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/10/why-river-phoenix-never-became-the-vegan-james-dean

October 30, 2018 12:37 pm

Twenty-five years ago, River Phoenix lay on the cold pavement of a Hollywood sidewalk, steps away from a famous nightclub, suffering from an overdose of heroin and cocaine. While a crowd of gawkers in Halloween costumes gathered around him and his younger brother Joaquin called 911, inside the nightclub—the Viper Room—Johnny Depp was onstage with his band P, playing a song about Hollywood celebrity. Spookily, it name-checked Phoenix: “I finally talked to Michael Stipe / But I didn’t get to see his car / Him and River Phoenix / Were leaving on the road tomorrow.”

At 1:51 A.M. on October 31, 1993, River Phoenix was pronounced dead. He was just 23 years old. It was a tragedy for those who knew and loved him, and a shattering event for all the young fans who had hung posters of him on their walls, and for all the moviegoers who had been moved by his performances. It marked the end of a short but prolific career, encompassing 13 movies and one short-lived TV series. In life, River Phoenix was still figuring out what kind of movie star he wanted to be: pinup boy, hippie idol, scruffy activist? Now the question was asked all over again: what kind of icon would he be in death?

The assumption of many Hollywood observers was that Phoenix would take his place in the cinematic pantheon as the “vegan James Dean”: a symbol of restless youth, encumbered with more talent and beauty than he knew what to do with, coming to an abrupt, early end. That didn’t happen.

One reason was the unusual contours of the Phoenix filmography: after you stripped away the dreck (Little Nikita) and the moderately interesting flops (The Mosquito Coast), four excellent films remain where he had a starring role. Dogfight was a lyrical two-hander with Lili Taylor about an unlikely encounter shared by a coffee-shop waitress and a U.S. Marine shipping out to Vietnam. Running on Empty earned Phoenix an Oscar nomination for his performance as a piano prodigy who was the son of 1960s radicals perpetually in hiding from the federal government. Neither film was a hit; both are mostly forgotten today. His tough-but-vulnerable role in Stand by Me launched his career, but because he was just 14 years old at the time he made the movie, we don’t necessarily feel like we’re watching the same person who O.D.’d as an adult. His performance as Mike Waters, the narcoleptic street hustler in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, remains iconic, and groundbreaking in the history of queer cinema—but the movie is rarely seen now, maybe because there’s no easy way to coherently cut it down for basic cable.

Nobody in 1993, however, could have predicted the primary reason that Phoenix didn’t transform into a golden legend after he died: the events of April 5, 1994. In the carpeted room above a garage in Seattle, Kurt Cobain pointed a shotgun at his own head and pulled the trigger. Apparently the 1990s had room for just one beautiful blond boy who symbolized youthful tragedy, and Cobain was it.

So if Phoenix isn’t the “vegan James Dean” or even the “Kurt Cobain of Hollywood,” what is he?

Human beings are complex organisms, believing many different things—only some of them contradictory—over the course of a lifetime. In death, they often get reduced to one quality, like a supporting character in a newspaper comic strip. Animal-rights advocates might remember Phoenix as a vegan pioneer. (Veganism was so unusual when he began advocating for it that some magazines instead referred to him as “ultravegetarian.”) Environmentalists can honor Phoenix’s efforts to buy up swaths of rainforest, one of the first Hollywood stars to do so. Fellow cult survivors may draw lessons from Phoenix’s childhood in the Children of God and the sexual abuse he suffered as a result of its doctrines.

It’s an absurdly heavy burden to be held up as the symbol of a generation, especially when the generation is still trying to figure out what it stands for itself. Before everyone settled on “Generation X” as the nickname for Americans born between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, one of the tags that got kicked around for that demographic trance was “the Slacker generation,” inspired by the rambling 1991 Richard Linklater film.

As it came of age, the generation was popularly defined by irony and listlessness, which meant that anyone within it who was visibly working hard, such as Google founder Larry Page or Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, was automatically disqualified as a symbol. Heroin took that disaffected pose and enforced it chemically: Kurt Cobain didn’t kill himself to fulfill his generational destiny, but his death somehow felt inevitable in retrospect.

After River Phoenix died with heroin in his bloodstream, Brad Pitt said, “I think he was the best. Is. Was. Is the best of the young guys. I’m not just saying that now—I said that before he died. He had something I don’t understand.” What distinguished Phoenix from his peers was not his glowing charisma, his politics, or his secret vices. It was his joy. He jumped off the high hills of Hollywood into the foggy unknown, he giddily shouted out requests for U.F.O.s to come abduct him, he walked down New York City streets dancing and leaping into the air.

River Phoenix was a good enough actor to express complex emotions on-screen and to pose for photographs with a jaded attitude, and he had suffered enough youthful trauma that he was entitled to be sour, but everything he did was permeated with that sense of delight. He reminded young people that you could conceal happiness, but you couldn’t stamp it out—which is why his death felt especially cruel.

You can look at Phoenix’s peers, like Pitt and Ethan Hawke, or at the actors slightly younger than him, like Leonardo DiCaprio and his own brother Joaquin, and see blurry versions of what his career might have been. In a universe where River Phoenix stayed alive, he’d be 48 years old today, and like the other actors of his generation—like the other human beings of his generation—he would have inevitably tempered his enthusiasm with painful mistakes and rueful experience. It’s somehow easier to imagine that maturity than it is to make sense of his body on the sidewalk.

That’s one more reason Phoenix didn’t become iconic over the past quarter-century: he doesn’t make sense in death, because he took so much joy in life.

Gavin Edwards is the author of Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind and 10 other books, most recently The World According to Tom Hanks: The Life, the Obsessions, the Good Deeds of America’s Most Decent Guy.

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