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So I’m sitting eating my sushi and reading Shakespeare (“Sushi and Shakespeare” – sounds like chick lit) and thinking (FINALLY!) about Romeo and Juliet. It’s been a real struggle, and here’s why: I hate the play. I know, how can a Theatre/English Lit. person hate an iconic show, the epitome of “twu wuv”, tragedy, and beauty in pathos? Here’s the thing – the plot STINKS. You know how they say that once you get off the fence, you can’t get back on… once you choose a side you can only stick to that side OR go all the way over to the other extreme… (Trust me. They say that.) Evidently, I’m a lapsed romantic, and as such I have fallen to the opposite end of the spectrum. I just don’t see the appeal in a plot determined by hormones masked as “true love”, and by an utter lack of common sense parading around as “romance” and self-indulgent pride. I don’t blame the children – which of us haven’t at some time been stupid, horny teenagers? I blame the adults; specifically, Friar Laurence and the Nurse.Ponder this – the play is written as a comedy. There’s a love story, there’s slapstick humor, there’s costumes and masks and feasting and dancing – all elements of a Shakespearean comedy. Then there’s the Nurse – she agrees to help Juliet get together with Romeo out of a misguided sense of the romantic; and if she’d just done her JOB and told Juliet’s mother what the girl was getting up to NO ONE WOULD HAVE DIED. I’m not convinced Juliet wouldn’t have been perfectly happy with Paris – he certainly seemed eager to please! Next we have Friar Laurence; he of the ego so huge that he’d rather test an experimental drug of his own devising on a poor innocent girl under the pretext of helping one of his favorite parishioners – and if he’d pulled his head out of his stillroom for more than two minutes he SURELY would have seen that by going to Prince Escalus he could potentially not only have cleared Romeo, he could have ENDED THE FEUD by putting the newlyweds under the protection of the government. Instead he goes all drama queen by producing his convoluted “solution”, and then runs off like a jackrabbit at the last moment when he still could have saved everybody. We end up with two dead teenagers, two miserable families, a city in turmoil, and hopefully – a fired priest and down-sized child-care provider. This is tragic, but not tragedy – according to Aristotle, tragedy occurs when unhappy things happen to good people that cannot be prevented because they are dictated by Fate. The events of Romeo and Juliet happen because the secondary characters are STUPID.
I find this annoying.
But, as a dramaturg, I have the obligation to study and research the play, and drag my feet as I will – the show does indeed go on. So, I have decided to chronicle my experience with the production of the play and see if my opinion changes; and to open it up to you (THE AUDIENCE) for feedback and response.
To start us off: let’s talk about LOVE, baby! Held up as a pinnacle of “romantic” fiction, this play has made icons of the young doomed lovers as examples of what love is all about .
What? I don’t get it.
I mean, I’m 34 and terminally single, so obviously I haven’t gotten it – but really, what’s the big deal? What is this “love” of which W. Shakespeare preaches so beautifully? What am I missing? What is this thing that is so big and overwhelming that it makes otherwise sensible people throw away home, family, tradition (and in the recent movie version, Paul Rudd -???) and act so incredibly rashly? How is the “love” in Romeo and Juliet different from raging hormones?
I just sat in on a production meeting, and I’ve been catapulted into research mode – I totally “get” the director’s vision of the play, and I’m excited about it. I’ve been pounding out notes on details and collecting all kinds of pictures for days. I’m not sure that I’ll ever catch the fire of the “passion” of Romeo and Juliet – but I’m interested to see how it goes.
So, help me out – quote me anything you’ve got, tell me stories, sing me songs… what do YOU know about love? Eventually I may be an expert on Shakespeare, but at the moment I’m not sure I’ll ever understand that thing that makes the world go round (other than gravity).
Watch out for love-struck teenagers (always sound advice, if you think about it),
Cyd
P.S. Okay, so it wasn't SUSHI-sushi - technically the California Rolls were completely cooked. But it was fishy, and rice-y, and soy sauce-y, and everybody's got to start somewhere, right? Right?
