All the World’s a Staged Misdirection

Yes, I just defiled Shakespeare and I own it… Image by author, created in AI. I was attempting to recreate a vintage photo of two actors in the 1947 Broadway production of… well, revealing more details somewhat undermines the ensuing story, so we’ll let that go for now. Interesting aside: I just got banned for creating this image. Details in the footnotes. Brian, left: “What the hell are you doing? I’m standing here looking incredibly sexy even though there seems to be something not-right going on with my pants.” Mary, right: “I’m just so fed up with people I want to scream and bang on something loud.” Brian: “Okay. Are these people you don’t like off to our right? What are you looking at? Is there a script over there? Because I’m not really sure where we’re going with this scene.” Mary: “No, Fancy Pants. I’m checking to see if I have a pop-up on my laptop.” Brian: “That sounds like a medical condition. Do I need to call somebody? And what would I tell them if I did?” Mary: “You seem…