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NOTES FOR TEACHERS
SHAKESPEARE’S R&J
ADAPTED BY JOE CALARCO
AND
SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET
Shakespeare’s R&J -THE PLAY
Joe Calarco set out to write a play about passion and authority, also two core
themes in Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”. Joe Calarco says “I wanted
to get to the essence of what I think Shakespeare is: passionate, violent, thrilling
and theatrical. By cutting the cast to four guys we’ve been able to explore the
way men interact and how they view women, sex and masculinity. The concept
of students in a private school was created in order to mirror Shakespeare’s
Verona and the stifling, repressive, forbidden world that Romeo and Juliet
inhabit.”
Romeo and Juliet’s Verona live is filled with danger. In Shakespeare’s play, it is
a city state in which two of the leading families are virtually conducting a civil
war. The servants of both houses brawl in the streets, elderly retainers are
roughed up and the young noblemen bait each other and are quick to fight to the
death with swords. The rule of Prince Escalus is absolute. He holds the security
of the city and the welfare of the inhabitants in his hands. Transgressions of the
peace result in severe punishment such as death or banishment. In this volatile
environment Capulet is keen that his allegiance to the Prince is secured through
an advantageous marriage for his daughter Juliet to the Prince’s cousin Paris.
Hers is a narrow world with few expectations of independence. As a good
daughter she accepts this is to be her fate – until she meets Romeo and falls in
love.
Like Romeo and Juliet the four schoolboys in “R&J” live in an authoritarian
environment; that of a restrictive Catholic boys boarding school. The school’s
hierarchy regards Shakespeare’s play as a subversive text and has banned it. In
a strictly moral reading of “Romeo and Juliet” it is possible to argue that it does
walk a dubious line. The lovers defy parental authority, they are deceitful to their
parents, have underage sex and in their blind and impetuous passion, are
caught in a web of deceit which finally drives them to commit suicide, an act
forbidden by Catholicism. Although this is a valid reading of the play we know
Shakespeare was sympathetic towards his lovers.
In the boarding school the students’ days are closely regulated with dull classes
in which their minds are shaped to fit into a narrow view of the role and influence
of women and of marriage. The students dare not defy the system openly but
like Romeo and Juliet, they do so at night. Their secret exploration of the text
opens up their understanding of love with all its passion, exhilaration and pain.
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The meeting places of the lovers: a moonlit orchard, a balcony, the pre dawn
tranquility of Juliet’s bedchamber, Friar Laurence’s cell, the tomb, are matched
by the secret meeting place of the school students. The privacy of these spaces
is always under threat of invasion. Father’s, mothers and nurses can enter
unexpectedly and catch the lovers while the students face the danger of
discovery by school staff. In both Verona and the school, the characters live in
fear. Discovery of Romeo and Juliet’s romance could lead to death for Romeo
and possibly for both. For the boys to be caught in their nocturnal activities the
outcome could be expulsion. For both parties privacy is hard come by and
fragile thereby creating an atmosphere of intensity and furtiveness. This in turn
heightens the thrill of the secret encounters and the urgency with which their
actions take place.
In “R&J” the students go through the motions of their classes until night and their
return to the play. Joe Calarco uses this device to mirror the impatience with
which Shakespeare’s hero and heroine pass the day. In Shakespeare’s plays
night is the time for lovers and Romeo and Juliet count the tedious daylight
hours as they wait to be together.
Joe Calarco describes “Romeo and Juliet” as ‘a fierce, dangerous tragedy about
sex, death, lust, betrayal, murder and teen suicide”. His inspiration was drawn
from Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”.
“Both pieces deal with mob mentality which I think is a strong factor in the
energy of “R&J”, he says. “Romeo and Juliet” is in many ways about sexual
hysteria”. In “The Crucible” the “repression leads to psychosis” while in “Lord of
The Flies” violence erupts from the mob mentality engendered by being
separated from general society. By setting “R&J” play in the enclosed
environment of a catholic boys school where patriarchy is the governing force
and Romeo and Juliet is banned, the playwright creates a world which pulsates
with sexual hysteria and urgent discovery.
It is important that the play is seen as four students acting out “Romeo and
Juliet” and not trying to be the characters in the play. Each of the school boys
has an identity of his own which is brought to the role playing. The audience
watches as individually they experience a growing up, self discovery process.
“R&J” also offers the audience the opportunity to reassess the themes of
Shakespeare’s play in a way they may not have considered before.
“…it should radiate with a very young, very male, energy. … It also makes the
students’ acceptance of a definition of love without boundaries more moving and
monumental” says the playwright.
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BOYS PLAYING WOMEN IN SHAKESPEARE AND R&J
The playing of women by men was an established tradition on the Elizabethan
stage. It was considered improper for women to be actors or even to work in the
theatre. In Shakespeare’s plays all female roles were played by young boys and
we know there were several in Shakespeare’s company. It is likely that the large
number of roles in his plays featuring women disguising themselves as men, is
due to this fact. Women did not appear on stage until after the restoration of the
monarchy in 1660. Many female parts continued to be played by men,
particularly character or comic roles such as the witches in “Macbeth” and the
nurse in “Romeo and Juliet”.
Again quoting from Joe Calarco, “Once the students get over their initial
embarrassment of playing women, they play the female characters ‘straight’.
They never try to become women. We were astonished… at how strong these
women are. They were written as powerhouses”.
ADDITIONAL TEXT IN SHAKESPEARE’S R&J
“R&J” also contains other Shakespeare passages borrowed from “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream” a play believed to be written about the same time,
and certainly premiered in the same year, as “Romeo and Juliet”. The play ends
with two sections of the prologue from a Midsummer Nights Dream chosen to
heighten the sense of the magical experience the students have shared. It is
interesting to examine how Student 1 uses the text to encourage the others to
continue the play. They answer with another speech from “Dream” thereby
emphasising that what they have experienced was no more than a dream and
that it is now over.
There are two Shakespeare sonnets used in “R&J”.
Sonnet #147
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire his death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
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For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
The inclusion of this sonnet at the beginning of R&J sets up a preoccupation
with love. Student one (Romeo), is writing the sonnet into a notebook during
class. Student 1 (Romeo), mirrors the love-sick Romeo pining for Rosaline at
the beginning of Shakespeare’s play.
Calarco uses the second sonnet #18 in Friar Laurence’s Cell. Shakespeare did
not write a wedding scene and Calarco uses the sonnet to create one while
adding a subtle subtext to the relationship between Student 1 and Student 2.
Calarco uses the same sonnet again towards the end of “R&J” when Friar
Laurence hands Juliet the sleeping potion and we hear Romeo recite from
Sonnet #18. This reminds us of the wedding but also foreshadows the short
bloom of Romeo and Juliet’s love.
Sonnet #18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Interspersed with these Shakespeare texts are selections from a Victorian
manual on etiquette titled “The American Code of Manners”. The boys chant
children’s playground rhymes, the Catholic confession ritual and conjugations of
the Latin verb to love: amare “Amo, amas, amat amamus amatis, amant”.
Through these devices, Joe Calarco contrasts the conservatism of the school
with the free thinking fantasies of the pubescent boys. The world into which they
enter at night through “Romeo and Juliet” is coloured by love and its
possibilities, it is a way to escape into the forbidden and find expression for
repressed emotions and thoughts.
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JOE CALARCO BIOGRAPHY
Joe is the adaptor/director of “Shakespeare’s R&J” which ran for a year in
New York and earned him a Lucille Lortel Award. He also directed the play’s
premieres in Chicago (5 Jeff Award nominations including Best Play and
Best Director) and Washington, D.C. (Helen Hayes Award nominations for
Best Play and Best Director). “R&J” completed a celebrated run in London’s
West End in late 2003, He directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of
the musical “Sarah, Plain and Tall” at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York.
He also directed Julia Jordan’s “The Summer of the Swans” at the Lucille
Lortel and directed Ms. Jordan’s play Boy for Primary Stages. He is an
Artistic Associate at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia where he has
directed productions of “Urinetown”, William Finn’s “Elegies: a song cycle” (3
Helen Hayes nominations including Best Musical), the world premiere of
Norman Allen’s “Nijinsky’s Last Dance” (4 Helen Hayes Awards including
Best Play and Best Director), “Side Show” (4 Helen Hayes Awards including
Best Musical and Best Director), and the world premiere of his own play, “in
the absence of spring”, which premiered in New York at Second, under his
own direction As a writer, his adaptation of “Antigone” was work-shopped at
the National Theatre in London. He served as resident playwright at
Expanded Arts, Inc. for two years. He has been Joseph Papp artist in
residence at Second Stage, is one of New York Theatre Workshop’s "usual
suspects," and is a Drama League directing fellow. Graduate: Ithaca
College.
Shakespeare’s
ROMEO AND JULIET
THE SOURCE OF THE TEXT
“Romeo and Juliet” was written in mid 1596 when Shakespeare was about thirty
two. But it is not a play about love written from the jaded perspective of a mature
man but rather a play about youth and passion and the overwhelming force of
first love. It is possible the character Romeo reflects Shakespeare’s own
emotional state as the precocious eighteen year of lover of his older future wife.
Shakespeare based his version of the story on a long poem by Arthur Brooke
called “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet” which was published in
1562, two years before Shakespeare was born. The author was already dead,
drowned at sea, when Shakespeare set about creating his own adaptation of it
so we do not know what he might have thought of Shakespeare’s retelling of the
story. But it is doubtful that he would have regarded it as plagiarism because
Brooke’s version was in turn taken from a French poem by Pierre Boaistuau
(1559), which was based on an Italian story by Matteo Bandello (1554). In 1562
William Painter had published an English translation of Boaistuau’s poem called
“Rhomeo and Julietta” which was probably a secondary source for
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Shakespeare. In any case it was standard practice amongst Elizabethan
dramatists to borrow their subject matter and stories from existing texts and from
other plays and books.
Brooke’s poem was written in a cumbersome form of rhyme called Poulter’s
Measure, a combination of rhyming couplets or Alexandrines, popular before
Shakespeare’s time in French and German literature, and Fourteeners or twelve
and fourteen syllable lines. The term was coined by George Gascoigne because
poulters, or poulterers, sellers of hens and eggs, would sometimes give 14 to
the dozen or a baker’s dozen. By contrast Shakespeare wrote in iambic
pentameter which is a form closer to every day speech.
But “Romeo and Juliet” was not straight translation from Brook’s poem to a
stage. Shakespeare made many important changes to the characters, the plot
and the chronology to make the play fast moving, youthful and dramatic. He also
compressed the time span from nine months to an action packed five days
In Shakespeare’s play Juliet sees Romeo on Sunday evening, they marry on
Monday soon after midday, an hour later Romeo kills Tybalt. He leaves Verona
at dawn on Tuesday and that same day Juliet is told she must marry Paris on
Wednesday. She drinks the poison on Tuesday night and is found dead on
Wednesday morning and is placed in the tomb that day and awakes on
Thursday morning to find Romeo dead beside her.
The other important change was to lower Juliet’s age from eighteen in William
Painter’s version, and sixteen in Brooke, to thirteen. This adjustment is a critical
factor in heightening the dramatic effect of the tragedy. Juliet is not yet an adult
and her innocence is in part, the explanation for the impetuousness of her
actions. Her father says ‘She is still a stranger to the world’ but on meeting
Romeo, Juliet is swept into life and out again before she has experienced it.
Two versions of “Romeo and Juliet” were printed in Shakespeare’s lifetime.
They are called Quartos. One was a shorter version of the play we are familiar
with and was possibly a text used by actors for playing as it contains many
stage directions. The second version appears to have been transcribed from
Shakespeare’s own drafts. It contains additions and edits and some lines have
been reassigned to other characters. It is most likely that Shakespeare made a
number of changes to the play following the initial performances or over a
number of years. This is the same process a playwright uses today to refine a
play during the preview period or for return seasons. For instance in iii 3, when
Romeo desperately threatens to kill himself, the contemporary text based on the
second version reads:
ROMEO;
O,tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
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The hateful mansion. [Drawing his sword].
FRIAR:
Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man?...
In the first version it is different:
ROMEO:
Ah tell me holy Fryer
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lye? Tell me that I may sacke
The hateful mansion?
[He offers to stab himself, and Nurse snatches the dagger away].
NURSE:
Ah!
FRIAR:
Hold, stay thy hand: art thou a man? Thy form
Cryes out thou art,…..
The substitution of a dagger for a sword and the intervention of the Nurse
underlines Romeo’s youthfulness. It is the kind of reaction a Nurse would have
when a child plays with a knife. In the later version Romeo draws a sword, an
adult weapon, and the Friar reminds him of his manhood. Through this minor
change the scene becomes more dramatic and Romeo is forced to act in a more
adult way. It is the second version that was reprinted in the First Folio (1623)
FIRST PERFORMANCES
The first performance of “Romeo and Juliet” was at the original Globe Theatre in
about 1595 by The Chamberlin’s Men, Shakespeare’s company of actors. We
know that Richard Burbage the principal actor, played Romeo and Will Kemp
the company clown played Peter the Capulet’s bawdy servant, while two of the
boy actors played Juliet and the nurse. It is always said that Shakespeare took
the roles of Friar Lawrence and the Chorus, but there is also evidence that
Shakespeare played Mercutio, the quick-silver and quick witted friend of Romeo.
The poet Dryden in his “Defence of the Epilogue” to “The Conquest of Granada”
(1670) says that ‘Shakespeare showed the best of his skill in Mercutio, and he
said himself that he was forced to kill him in the third Act to prevent being killed
by him.’ Dryden thought that the voice of this character was closest to the voice
of Shakespeare himself. The fantastic, fanciful and cynical view of love that is
the Queen Mab speech, is typical of the dramatist who could not present a
tragedy without comedy to highlight the absurdities of life.
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Peter Ackroyd in his biography of Shakespeare, describes him as “the poet of
speed and agility. His characters are not of the study or the library but of the
busy and active world. His is the drama of the sudden moment of change, and
one of his most powerful images is that of the lightening strike ‘which doth cease
to bee/Ere one can say, it lightens. (Romeo and Juliet 892-3) All the myriad
imagery, from the social as well as the natural world, suggests he was a man of
preternatural alertness. And he was well known, like the characters in his
comedies, for the quickness of his repartee.”
This description of Shakespeare’s personality could also be a description of
Mercutio with his eloquent and rapid conversation and clever, bawdy jokes.
Another reason to believe that Shakespeare may have written this role for
himself is that Mercutio was given a far bigger presence in “Romeo and Juliet”
than in the source material. In the second published version of the play
Shakespeare also elaborated on the Queen Mab speech. It takes an actor of
considerable skill to make this fanciful and poetic speech work dramatically and
Shakespeare was considered to have both the vocal power and the acting skills
to do it.
YOUNG LOVERS
Shakespeare may have lowered the ages of Romeo and Juliet to shock his
audience. To be involved in a physical relationship at such a tender age would
have been quite morally provocative to Elizabethans. But as he did so often to
‘get away with things’, the play is set in an exotic location and time; 14th century
Verona, Italy where it could be presumed morality was different and the
passions hotter like the climate.
It may well be that the canny entrepreneur in Shakespeare the theatre manager,
thought that the controversy caused by such young lovers would appeal to the
audience. The tragic end brought to their true and innocent love as victims of an
adult feud certainly evoked a level of sympathy that older and arguably less rash
lovers, would have. If Shakespeare was aiming to capture the immediacy of
youthful passion he certainly succeeded. The sudden infatuation that causes
Romeo and Juliet to risk their lives to be together, their secret marriage carried
out in haste with the knowledge that their parents would never have allowed it,
and their complete and unwavering commitment to either living as man and wife
or dying together, has the unreasoned madness of the very young. It is as
though not yet knowing the fullness of life or the finality of death, they rush to
experience both.
It is an interesting side note that if the dating of the play to 1595 were correct,
Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna would have been twelve years old. Perhaps
at the back of Shakespeare’s mind was a father’s observation of a daughter on
the brink of puberty. Perhaps Susanna displayed the headstrong passion and
strength that Shakespeare attributed to his young heroine. Whatever
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Shakespeare’s intention and inspiration, the tender ages of his lovers struck a
chord with the public. The play became a favourite and along with “Hamlet”, was
the most performed in Shakespeare’s lifetime.
TIME AND PACE
JULIET:
Gallop apace, you firery-footed steeds,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Come night, come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night,
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.
What could more eloquently express impatience than this speech? Juliet cannot
wait for night to come so Romeo can be with her and they can consummate
their marriage. Throughout the play Shakespeare uses images of youthful
impetuousness to drive the action forward. We know the entire action takes
place in five frantic days and this is reflected in the rapidity of the events. Every
scene drives the action to the next with a little ‘comic business’ to divert the
forward rush of the story. Even the ramblings of the nurse are filled with
important information which contributes to the audiences’ knowledge. This
urgency is heightened by constant references to lightening, flight and speed.
Lightening is an image that Shakespeare uses constantly. Juliet recognises that
things might be moving too fast when she says:
Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightening, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say it lightens.
Benvolio says of the fight between Romeo and Tybalt ‘And To’t they go like
lightening’. Romeo remembers the ‘lightening before death’ that men are said to
experience”.
Wings and speed are also used to underline the swiftness of the events.
Juliet is described by Romeo as ‘A winged messenger of heaven’ and Romeo
‘rides on the wings of night’.
Juliet counts the hours she must wait for the Nurse to return from meeting
Romeo and says ‘love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten time faster glides than the sun’s beams
Driving back shadows over louring hills.
Therefore do nimble-pinioned doves draw love
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings’.
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And later in the same speech:
‘So tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them’.
Shakespeare is well aware that speed is a youthful quality and slowness that of
age. He uses this to great effect has Juliet say of the Nurse.
‘Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She would be as swift in motion as a ball.’
Even the stage directions urge speed: ‘Enter Juliet, somewhat fast, and
embraceth Romeo’. Peter Ackroyd sums up Romeo and Juliet as “a play of
youthfulness, youthful impulsiveness and of youthful extravagance; it is a play of
dancing and sword –play, both measuring out an arena of energy with sudden
violence and swift transitions”.
The lovers rush into death with the same haste as their rush into love and
marriage. In the Capulet vault Romeo drinks the poison and says ‘O true
Apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die’.
As he falls Friar Laurence enters saying: ‘St Francis be my speed.’ Juliet wakes
and discovers Romeo dead beside her. Friar Laurence tries to rush her away
but she refuses choosing to commit suicide instead. Juliet hears someone
approaching: ‘Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger!
This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die’.
The writer Adrian Poole calls the play ‘A hymn to youth, to passion, to speed, to
danger in which the characters live fast and die young’.
The passing of time is clearly marked through the play with descriptions of
dawn, morning, evening and night. The characters refer to the moon and the
sun and the heat of day or the paleness of morning. Capulet tells us it being late
at night when he sends his wife to tell Juliet she will be married on Thursday; the
Prince at the tomb reinforces the early hour: ‘What misadventure is so early up?’
Romeo and Juliet’s impassioned parting after their wedding night is all about the
time of day:
JULIET:
Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
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ROMEO:
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET:
Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.
Throughout the play Shakespeare keeps track of which day it is, the weather
and the time. Juliet is particularly concerned by the passing of time: the
slowness of the Nurse, the speed of their love and the length of their parting:
Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days:
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo!
In both the plays that Shakespeare premiered in 1595, “Romeo and Juliet” and
“A Midsummer’s Night Dream”, the time for lovers is night. The sword fights and
violence between the Capulet’s and Montagues are day-time events. This theme
of light and dark reappears throughout the play. It is an essential part of the
duality of the themes; love and hate, youth and age, joy and grief, quick and
slow, night and day and life and death. As Adrian Poole says “Romeo and Juliet
owes its legendary status to the doubleness with which it represents the fast life
and early death the young lovers.”
There is also a practical explanation for Shakespeare telling us that it is night or
day as all the performances took place in the open air in daylight without the aid
of modern stage lighting to set the scene. He also set the play in high summer
when the tempers of the characters were at boiling point to heighten the hot
passions.
BENVOLIO:
I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.
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LOVE AND DEATH
Throughout the play love is linked to death. From the very opening the Prologue
speaks of ‘The fearful passage of their death marked love’. So Romeo and
Juliet’s passion is doomed from the outset. No sooner are the lovers met and
wed than they are separated by death, first the death of Mercutio, then Tybalt
and then their own deaths. By choosing suicide rather than life apart Romeo and
Juliet are joined in immortality but they have no time to share more than one
brief night of love. As Adrian Poole says in his introduction to “Romeo and Juliet”
“with characteristic cruelty he (Shakespeare), dooms Romeo and Juliet to the
fight with Tybalt before the marriage is consummated, so that the single night he
shares with Juliet is correspondingly shadowed –and precious”. Throughout the
play love is linked with death. The Nurse remembers Juliet’s birth date as the
time of the death of her own child Susan ‘who was of an age with Juliet’. Her
late husband’s bawdy joke when Juliet will ‘fall backwards’ links her first sexual
encounter with an image of death. The short cycle of life that Juliet will
experience is one of birth, feeding on a nipple that has nursed a dead child,
coming of age and death following hard upon her first and only sexual
encounter.
Shakespeare tells the audience that Juliet was born on the eve of Lammastide.
Lammas is the eight weeks from August 1 to Michaelmas on 29 September.
This is the time in which the crops ripen and the first harvest takes place. The
Michaelmas loaves are baked from the first grain harvested each season. Juliet
is named after the month of July, the month when summer blooms.
Shakespeare is likening Juliet to the season of growth, when the crops are ripe
and ready for picking and consuming. Juliet is ripe and ready for love. Her father
calls her “the hopeful lady of my earth’. Shakespeare drew some inspiration for
Juliet from classical mythology, in particular the legend of Persephone, the
daughter of Demeter the goddess of the harvest. Persephone was abducted by
Hades the god of the Underworld where she reigned as queen through the
winter months. She returns to the earth each year in spring to be reunited with
her mother Demeter, who allows the crops to flourish in honour of her return. In
this way Persephone is said to undergo a ritual death each year at the end of
summer. The ancient Greeks interpreted this myth as an allegory of the
marriage ritual. They felt that marriage was a sort of abduction of the bride from
her family by the groom.
WHAT IS IN A NAME
It is interesting to note that names do have relevance in Shakespeare’s play.
Juliet as has been noted, was named after the hot summer month of July,
Romeo means wanderer. Mercutio’s name was derived from Mercury also
called Hermes, the trickster and messenger of the gods. Mercury is associated
with eloquence, roads, wind, sleep and dreams. A fitting name for the character
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who has the fanciful speech about dreams of Queen Mab.
ELIZABETHAN MARRIAGE
In England the legal age of consent for marriage was fourteen however early
teenage marriages rarely took place. The few marriages that are on record show
that most teenage couples were formerly betrothed and married when they were
older than fourteen. In fact it was considered dangerous to the well being of the
young woman to have a physical relationship until she was at least sixteen. This
concern is echoed by Juliet’s father to Paris the man he wishes her to marry,
when he says “Too soon mared are those so early made”. While young girls
were sometimes married the consummation of the relationship was often
postponed until the girl was more mature. It was more usual for a woman to be
married in her twenties. Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna married at twenty
and her younger sister Judith at thirty one.
It was not unusual for marriages to be arranged by parents particularly amongst
the nobility. In fact, the higher born or the wealthier the family, the less control
the children had over their choice of marriage partner. Only the lowest classes
were free to choose their own husbands and wives. High born fathers chose
alliances for their children for political or financial reasons. Wealth and position
had to be secured and protected through alliance with the right families. As
Juliet appears to be an only child, she is therefore also an heiress and Capulet
wishes to ensure that her inheritance is safe and the family interests are secure.
Paris is related to the Prince, the ruler of Verona, so by choosing him as Juliet’s
husband Capulet would achieve both aims.
Romeo is probably fifteen or sixteen which was also very young for a man to
marry. However we know the young Shakespeare was certainly involved in a
sexual relationship at eighteen because when he married at that age, his wife
was pregnant. Elizabethan wedding customs and contracts would have required
that Shakespeare’s father had to agree to the marriage. Normally wedding bans
had to be read in a church on three consecutive Sunday’s and formal
permissions sought before a couple could be legally. Should a couple need to
marry in haste an alternative, faster, route to legalising a marriage required a
Marriage Bond which acted as a contract, security and proof to a Bishop that the
issue of a Marriage License was lawful. The Marriage Bond was accompanied
with a sworn statement that there were no pre-contract. The issue of a Marriage
Bond would require only one reading of the Banns - thus saving a couple of
weeks. Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare required such a Marriage
Bond.
The wedding of Romeo and Juliet is a Catholic marriage, celebrated by a Friar
and quite unlike the kind of marriage permitted in Protestant England. Perhaps
Friar Laurence recognises that the passion of the young couple will inevitably be
sexually consummated. To enable them to sleep together without committing a
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sin, they must be married. He recognises that a marriage uniting the two families
holds the possibility of ending the feud between the Capulets and Montagues.
The four protagonists, Romeo, Juliet, the Nurse and Friar Laurence are
gambling that once the lovers are married and the relationship consummated, it
will be also accepted by the families.
THE ELIZABETHAN COURT
It is important to evaluate the play in light of the world of Elizabeth 1. It was a
time of great optimism, the economy was buoyant and due to Elizabeth’s foray
into the New World, England was a major trading nation with a growing colonial
empire. It was also an age when religious affiliations were paramount to political
stability. Catholic versus Protestant troubles still bubbled under the surface and
in many respects Elizabeth’s England was a police state. The issue of her right
to the throne had been swept under the rug of political expediency while
concern that she should provide a suitable male Protestant heir dogged her for
most of her reign.
Shakespeare appears to have been careful to hide his own political and
religious beliefs. So successful was he at this that we know little about the man
himself. What he thinks and feels can only be gleaned from the text of his plays
and even this can be misleading. The high level of caution may have been
prompted in part by the violent deaths of two of his fellow playwrights in 1593.
Thomas Kyd the writer of the famed A Spanish Tragedy was arrested for
allegedly posting ‘lewd and malicious libels’ against foreign immigrants. He was
put to the torture and died a year later. It was possibly a trumped up charge in
order to force him to inform on Christopher Marlow who he named as a
blasphemer. Marlow was examined by the Privy Council and released after two
days. Ten days later he was slain, stabbed through the eye during a brawl over
a tavern bill in Deptford. But the circumstances were suspicious. It was later
revealed that Marlow had been a government spy. These two events must have
served as a salutary warning to the young Shakespeare, highlighting the
consequences of expressing personal opinions in the public theatre. He was
living in dangerous times and Shakespeare was careful to cultivate a smoke
screen around his personal life.
This sense of living in violent and dangerous times is also evident in Romeo and
Juliet. The play begins with a street battle between the servants of the feuding
families and ends with the deaths of all the young members of both the Capulet
and Montague households. Romeo and Juliet are the victims of irrational and
violent culture which ultimately destroys them.
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STAR CROSS’D LOVERS
One of the great contradictions of the Elizabethans was that regardless of their
rational interest in science, they were deeply superstitious. The famous
alchemist and necromancer Dr Dee, was held in high regard even at court and
Elizabeth consulted him for astrological predictions on both personal and
political matters. Shakespeare’s plays are filled with superstition and magic.
Hamlet and Macbeth have ghosts, witches and supernatural events and King
Lear is filled with pagan gods, curses, astrology and lives seemingly ruled by the
turning of fortune’s wheel.
Romeo and Juliet are said to be ‘star cross’d lovers’ in other words, their fate is
controlled by their astrological signs ruled by the stars. In the plays of the
ancient Greeks, fate and the Gods controlled the lives of the characters.
Similarly Romeo and Juliet cannot escape their tragic end as their ruling planets
have foretold it. Romeo senses that something is about to happen before his
first fateful meeting with Juliet when he says:
“My mind misgives,
Some consequence, still hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fateful date
With this night’s revels and expire the term
Of a despised life, closed in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail! On lusty gentlemen!
Juliet also has a premonition as Romeo leaves her bed chamber to begin his
exile in Mantua:
O God! I have an ill divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb,
Either my eyesight fails, or thou lookest pale.
ROMEO
As trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!
JULIET
O fortune, fortune! All men call the fickle.
If thou art fickle, what doust thou with him
That is renowned for faity? Be fickle fortune;
For then I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.
Romeo after killing Tybalt cries out:
O, I am fortune’s fool.
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Romeo believed the poison from the apothecary was the only thing that would
"shake the yoke of inauspicious stars" from his "world-wearied flesh."
There are over one hundred references to astrology in Shakespeare’s plays and
many of his characters consider that their lives are affected by the stars or the
moon. Anthony, in Julius Caesar, attributed his first defeat in battle to the stars
forsaking him and his final downfall to an eclipse of the moon. Prospero in The
Tempest is a magician who could control the elements and the fate of the
people living on his enchanted island.
This is not to say the Elizabethan’s did not believe in God or free will, that would
have been considered heretical, but they did believe in a strict order of what
they called ‘the spheres’. By choosing to do good it was possible to escape fate.
There were nine spheres which included the planets Saturn, Jupiter Mars, Sun,
Venus, Mercury and the moon. These they believed, were under divine control
and used by God as his tools. The nine spheres were inhabited by the nine
hierarchies of angels who could intercede between heaven and humans. The
spheres were also said to sing with celestial music which mankind could not
hear but could affect their souls.
We don’t know if Shakespeare believed in Astrology or magic but he knew his
audiences did and once again proved himself to be the astute entrepreneur by
using their superstitions to good effect in the creation of his plays.
SHAKESPEARE’S VERSE
Shakespeare was writing his plays in what is known by linguists as Early
Modern English which was in use from around 1500 to 1750. During this period
there was a great deal of change in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary so
that the language Shakespeare was writing in feels very similar to our Modern
English. The spelling however, is frequently very different from today. Just under
half the words in The First Folio have a spelling which is different from our
usage today so that in one edition we see spellings of the word ancient as
ancient, antient, aunchiant, auncient, and auntient. Spelling was not
standardised until the end of the eighteenth century. There were also
differences in pronunciation of vowels, and consonants so words like wind were
made to rhyme with unkind.
We do not know exactly what English sounded like at that time and there is no
corresponding modern accent for reference but some similarities exist in the
West of England accent. For instance the R was pronounced after vowels as in
fire.
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Sometimes the use of a grammatical form which appears alien to us at first is on
further examination, quite similar to Modern English as in this speech of
Hamlet’s to Laertes:
‘Swounds, show me what thou’lt do.
Woot weep, woot fight, woot fast, woot tear thyself,
Woot drink up eisel, eat a crocodile?
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine,
To outface me with leaping in her grave?’
Woot is a colloquial form of wilt or wouldst thou and when we use a
contemporary equivalent the speech is just as we would use today.
‘Show me what you will do.
Will you weep, will you fight, will you fast, will you
tear yourself,
Will you drink up eisel, eat a crocodile?
I’ll do it. Do you come here to whine,
To outface me with leaping into her grave?’
Shakespeare also reverses the order of adjectives and possessive pronouns as
in good my lord instead of ‘My good lord.’ Other words are used in a slightly
different form today such as like (Likely) as Gertrude says of Hamlet’s madness
‘Very like, very like.’
An actor today studying the lines in a Shakespeare play would need to find the
contemporary version to be certain of completely understanding what he or she
is saying. This enables the ‘truth’ of the line to be delivered as Shakespeare
intended.
The text of all Shakespeare’s plays is written predominately in verse called
iambic pentameter. This was the theatrical convention of the day but
Shakespeare often wrote in prose when he felt it was suited to the scene or the
character. Iambic pentameter is very close to every day speech and has an
easy rhythm to it. This makes the lines easier for the actor to learn. The verse is
made up of two syllables starting with a weaker followed by a stronger stress.
There are five stresses to a line, penta is Greek for five and iambic means feet:
Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt
da- DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM
It is the strength of this internal rhythm which drives the dialogue. An actor who
ignores this rhythm and rushes ahead to create a false poetic arc, will find the
sense is lost. All good playwrights use rhythm in the construction of dialogue. In
the plays of Harold Pinter this rhythm is accentuated by silences which are as
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important as the words. The plays of Tom Stoppard and David Williamson rely
on the rhythm for the timing of the humour to work with the audience.
Attention to punctuation is as important as respect for the rhythm. Shakespeare
signals changes of thought with the use of commas and semi colons. This is
Romeo’s very famous speech from “Romeo and Juliet”:
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.
It is my lady. O, it is my love!
O that she knew she were!
She speaks. Yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses. I will answer it.
I am too bold. ‘Tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
If an actor follows the punctuation in this speech pausing to think when there is
a comma or semi colon, the emotional pattern Shakespeare has given Romeo is
revealed. Romeo is distracted, his thoughts fractured changing mid sentence. It
would be a huge mis reading of this speech to push through the sentences
pausing only at the full stops. The sense would be lost and the performance
would be ‘stagy’. The punctuation in Shakespeare is very specific and an
experienced actor will always follow his instructions. The result is a naturalistic
delivery of the lines and a clear communication of the character’s ideas and
emotions. The first step for any actor playing Shakespeare is to look at the text
to determine how the author intended it to be spoken. If the clues Shakespeare
has embedded in the words, rhythm and punctuation are followed, the actor will
be well on the way to a successful interpretation.
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“Romeo and Juliet” contains some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful verse. It is
said that he took inspiration from the conventions of ‘courtly love’, the poetry
composed by French troubadours to woo highborn ladies at court. Such
beautiful language had never been dramatised on the English stage before and
must have astounded the audiences hearing it for the first time. It is not
surprising that this play was to prove one of his most popular. Take for instance
Romeo watching Juliet on the balcony on the first night:
She speaks.
O speak again, bright angel! – for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a wingèd messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturnèd wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy, puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
When he first sees her at the Capulet ball and falls instantly in love:
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
Today we tend to think of these words as poetry. We forget that in
Shakespeare’s time his plays were regarded as having rather just good dialogue
delivered by powerful characters. The more naturalistic the acting the more
praise the actors received from the audience. Shakespeare himself was an actor
and understood how to communicate with an audience. It is unlikely he handed
his plays over to someone else to stage but preferred to direct them himself. It is
thought that Hamlet’s advice to the players is a clear instruction as to how
Shakespeare wanted his plays acted and how his own players would have
performed them.
‘Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue,
but if you mouth it as many players do, I had as leif the town-crier spoke my
lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hands thus, but use all gently,
for in the very torrent, tempest and as I may say whirl-wind of your passion, you
must acquire and beget a temperance that may give a smoothness……. Let
your discretion be your tutor, suit the action to the word and the word to the
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action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature:
for anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the
first, and now, was and is, to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to natur’e.
Holding a mirror up to nature was paramount to Shakespeare. His use of rhythm
helped him achieve an easy naturalistic, flow; his punctuation indicated the way
the characters think and feel and his subject matter dealt with the human
condition in a thoughtful and realistic way. Later in the speech he turns to
comedy:
‘…let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for
there be of them that wil themselves laugh, to set on some quantitie of barraine
spectators to laugh to.’
This is a warning that when actors adlib it is at the expense of the issues being
explored in the play. Shakespeare is urging artists to have respect for the text
and the playwright’s intentions. In today’s theatre these instructions still apply. It
is thought that this jibe was particularly intended for the comic actor William
Kempe who was known to have performed his own routines and jigs during the
course of the play, often bringing the action to a halt. He left the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men over some disagreement with his fellow players. Scholars
suggest that he may have over indulged in comic antics to the annoyance of
Shakespeare. It may even have been over an earlier performance as the
Gravedigger. Shakespeare may have enjoyed the irony of reprimanding Kempe
in this speech in a later version of the play.
SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS
It is difficult to say exactly when each of Shakespeare’s plays was written.
Generally, Shakespearean Commentators divide his dramatic work into four
periods:
(1) the experimental period ending about 1594 and including “Love's Labour's
Lost”, “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, and “A Comedy of Error”s; plays that owe a
debt to the Roman plays of Plautus and to medieval drama. In these works we
see the dramatic influence of Christopher Marlow and Thomas Kyd.
(2) The period in which he became established ending about 1600, and marked
by the production of some of his best-known romantic comedies, notably “The
Merchant of Venice” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. It is also the period of
his best history plays in which the comedy and the tragedy is interwoven
becoming one of the characteristics of the Shakespearian style. “Henry V” is a
good example. This is also the period in which Romeo and Juliet was written.
We do not know if “Romeo and Juliet” was before or after a “Midsummer Night’s
Dream” but there are similar elements in both and many scholars suggest the
were written in the same year.
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(3) The first ten years of the 17th century when the tragedies such as “Hamlet”,
“Othello”, “Macbeth” and “King Lear” and “Julius Caesar” were written, the great
central figures displaying complex character development. These are stories of
loss with ambition and human frailty at their heart. The emotional journeys for
the central characters are on a scale reminiscent of the work of the great Greek
playwrights such as Sophocles. The comedies of this period such as “All’s Well
That Ends Well” and “Measure For Measure” are less assured and often
referred to as ‘problem plays’.
(4) The period from 1610 to the playwright's death, notable for
“A Winter's Tale” and “The Tempest”, all plays which are preoccupied with the
theme of redemption and contain some of his richest and most lyrical poetry.
The difference in style in these plays may be due to the maturity of the
playwright or to the changing tastes of the Elizabethan theatre.
No original full manuscript has been preserved but the plays themselves
survived due to the publishing of The First Folio, a collection of 36 Shakespeare
plays compiled by two actors from his company, Henry Condell and John
Heminge. Only one play is known to be lost entirely “Cardenio” written between
1612 – 13 at the end of Shakespeare’s career. Practically all of Shakespeare's
plots were borrowed. So original was his treatment and so remarkable his
command of language, that in the process of adaptation the borrowed plots
became his own. However, this did not prevent him being accused of plagiarism
in pamphlets published by rival playwright Robert Greene who called him ‘An
upstart Crowe beautified with our feathers” meaning he was an actor and not a
man of letters. In his early years as a playwright Shakespeare could not have
been greatly concerned by the accusation of plagiarism. He borrowed freely
from his contemporaries, characters and dialogue from John Lyly, plots from
Thomas Kyd and Robert Greene and dramatic devices from Christopher
Marlow. It is not an unfamiliar technique for someone learning how to write for
theatre to start out imitating and borrowing from successful writers. In his later
plays when his style was established, Shakespeare had no need for this
practice.
It is known that Shakespeare collaborated with other playwrights such as Ben
Johnson, also Nashe and Middleton among others. Some plays in this period
were penned by as many as five writers.
It is also known that Shakespeare collaborated on a play entitled “Sir Thomas
More” with Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle. Shakespeare added two
speeches to this text. We know they are his because of the handwriting. It is
thought that he wrote at least part of “Edward III” and he co wrote with John
Fletcher an actor and the dramatist who succeeded him when he retired from
The King’s Men.
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Many of the plots came from plays that were part of the existing repertoire of the
acting companies Shakespeare worked with. It is possible he was asked to
rewrite the texts to suit the actors or to make the plays relevant to current
audiences. We have evidence from the many published early versions of his
plays that he constantly revised his work. The line up of actors might change in
his company or the volatile political climate lend itself to a revision. Elizabethan
audiences were hungry for new theatre and one of the quickest ways for
Shakespeare to satisfy the demand was to revise his own earlier work. As his
output was so prolific he wrote his plays in a very short time with little
opportunity to make changes before they were first staged. It is possible that he
simply strove to refine his texts when time allowed. The revisions were written in
the margins of the text and in some instances both the old and new versions
were accidentally reproduced by the printer.
SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE
The first custom-made London theatre appropriately called The Theatre, was
built by James Burbage in 1576 at Finsbury Fields. The next year The Curtain
was built in the same area. These two theatres were so successful that ten
years later another spate of building began across the Thames on the south
side or Bankside, in the more liberal Southwark district. This area gradually
became a theatre centre. In 1587 The Rose was constructed, in 1595 The
Swan, in 1599 The Globe and in 1600 The Fortune, all in the same vicinity.
Southwark was outside the jurisdiction of the London authorities. As a result this
area was known for its bawdy activities, not only was it a red light district but
bear baiting and cock fighting and the ‘purple’ profession of acting were able to
take place there without fear of arrest or being closed down.
The Globe was built by the Burbage Brothers, Richard and Cuthbert and a
consortium of shareholders which included Shakespeare and four actors in his
company. The Globe was, in fact, a reconstruction of The Theatre which the
Burbages had inherited from their father. In 1597/8, when the lease ran out they
decided to demolish The Theatre and take the materials across the then frozen
Thames to Southwark and construct The Globe. It became the base for
Shakespeare's company at that time called The Chamberlain's Men.
The theatre had a total audience capacity of 2,000 to 3,000 crammed into an
area 80 feet x 80 feet. Because there was no lighting the plays were performed
only in daylight hours, 2.00 pm in the winter and 3.00 pm in summer.
Shakespeare described The Globe in the prologue to “Henry V” as a ‘wooden
O’. In effect it was an octagon, open to the air in the centre with the stage at one
end partially under cover. Round three sides of the yard were three tiers of
galleries with a thatched roof where the wealthier members of the audience sat,
the rest of the audience, the groundlings, stood in the open-air pit on three sides
of the stage. Admission ranged from a penny for the pit to the ‘two penny
gallery’ on the top tier and higher prices for the levels in between.
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The stage was raised about 4 to 5 feet, was about 43 feet wide and 28 feet
deep. An upstage area was curtained off to allow the reveal or to hide areas
such as the Capulets' tomb in “Romeo and Juliet” or Gertrude’s bedroom in
Hamlet. There were trapdoors to the space below the stage for actors to make
surprise appearances such as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father or to serve as
Ophelia’s grave. There was no proscenium arch; no scenery and costumes
were mostly contemporary dress with little attempt at historical accuracy. There
was also an upper level which was sometimes used for musicians to play in. It
could also be used as a performance area such as the balcony where Juliet
appears.
As the acoustics were poor in most other theatres actors less skilled than
Shakespeare’s were known to rant and bellow the lines. Because of the design
of The Globe the audience was quite close to the stage and the soliloquies
could be spoken relatively intimately. Productions at this theatre were renowned
for the high standard of the acting and the spectacular nature of the plays.
There were plenty of stage properties and realistic noises off, sometimes from
the heavens. For example, in the storm in “King Lear”, Lear’s words: ‘Blow,
winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!’ would be accompanied by
appropriate noises of thunder from above. In “Hamlet” the eerie voice of the
Ghost saying ‘Swear!’ would appear to come from below the ground.
On June 29, 1613 The Globe burnt down after a cannon fired during a
performance of “Henry VIII” set fire to the thatch roof. It was rebuilt in 1614 but
closed in 1642 by the Puritans and later demolished by Cromwell’s
Roundheads.
SHAKESPEARE THE BUSINESSMAN/ENTERPRENEUR
Five years prior to the opening of The Globe, in 1694, Shakespeare became a
share-owning partner in a commercial theatre company organised under the
patronage of the Lord Chamberlain, head of Queen Elizabeth 1 royal household.
Appearing as The Chamberlain’s Men, it became the principal theatre company
of its day. In 1603 after the ascension of King James 1 Shakespeare’s troupe
was renamed The King’s Men. The royal patronage extended to special
command performances at Whitehall Palace. This patronage provided the
actors with protection and the exulted status as members of the royal household
in a profession generally regarded as disreputable.
The success of The Globe was built on the strength of a steady stream of
Shakespeare’s plays performed by his renowned company of actors. Fifty
percent of the assets of The Globe were owned by Cuthbert and his brother
Richard Burbage Shakespeare’s leading actor. The other half was owned by
Shakespeare and the other key members of his company, John Heminge,
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Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope and Thomas Kempe. This stroke of
entrepreneurial genius secured the future success of all the partners, both
financially and artistically.
In another piece of astute business acumen Shakespeare managed to maintain
ownership of his plays. This meant that his company had an exclusive repertoire
of the ‘hottest’ plays of the time. It is rather like the situation today for Andrew
Lloyd Webber who holds the rights to his musicals and controls their
performance where and when and by whom he chooses. Like Shakespeare,
Lloyd Webber also owns London theatres so he can dictate what is presented in
them and profit from the returns. Like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Shakespeare
became a very wealthy man.
In 1596, James Burbage had converted an old monastery in London proper, the
area near St Paul’s, to the Blackfriars Theatre. When James Burbage died it
was taken over by his sons, Richard and Cuthbert and by 1600 the 'Children of
the Chapel', a company of boy actors, was giving regular performances there. In
1608 the children's companies were shut down and The Blackfriars was leased
to Shakespeare’s company on a twenty-one year agreement as a winter venue.
This theatre was a considerable acquisition. It was the first permanent indoor
theatre which gave Shakespeare the advantage of being able to play by
candlelight in all weathers and all year round. At the Globe, winter performances
would have concluded in the dark and often in cold and miserable weather. It is
thought that “The Tempest” was written for Blackfriars. With two theatres at his
disposal and the Royal imprimatur for his company, Shakespeare dominated the
London Theatre scene.
SHAKESPEARE’S COMPANY
A total of 26 names are recorded as the "Principal Actors" of Shakespeare's
company at The Globe in The First Folio of the Bard's collected plays however,
the basic company consisted of about twelve to fourteen players.
Near the top of the list we find Richard Burbage who initiated the performance of
some of Shakespeare's most famous characters including Hamlet, Lear, and
Othello, and Richard III. He was renowned for his naturalistic acting style which
was in contrast with the broad, declamatory style of most actors of his day. It is
important to note that all roles were played by men, no women were permitted to
be actors in Shakespeare’s time as was shown in the film “Shakespeare In
Love”.
Prior to The Globe's opening in 1599, the leading comic actor of The
Chamberlain's Men (and another shareholder in the Globe) was Will Kemp. His
roles included those of the servant Peter in “Romeo and Juliet”, probably Bottom
in “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, and possibly, Falstaff of the “Henry IV” plays
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and the gravedigger in “Hamlet”.
In 1599 Robert Armin, joined The Chamberlain's Men. Armin's capacity for
wordplay through malapropisms and puns became legendary, particularly in the
clown roles of Touchstone (“As You Like It”) and Feste (“Twelfth Night”); it is
possible that Armin made his debut at The Globe in the role of Feste, with Viola,
the heroine of “Twelfth Night” saying, This fellow is wise enough to play the fool
(III, i., l.60). During the great tragedies period, Armin was blessed with one of
the best comic roles in Shakespeare's canon, that of the Fool in King Lear.
William Sly was in Shakespeare’s Company from 1594 to 1605. It is thought that
he took youthful, romantic or soldierly parts such as Tybalt in “Romeo and
Juliet”, Laertes in “Hamlet” or Hotspur in “Henry IV”.
Shakespeare wrote with his players in mind so it is safe to surmise that when he
described Helena as tall and fair and Hermia as short and dark in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream he was writing for tall and short young men in his company.
Shakespeare played minor roles, the ghost in Hamlet for instance. It is doubtful
that he ever took leading parts, as a theatre owner, playwright and director it is
unlikely he would have had the time, but we do know that he had a reputation
for playing ‘Kingly’ characters. From this we can surmise that he had elegant
posture and a resonant voice. Legend has it that he played the Friar in “Romeo
and Juliet” and possibly also Mercutio in his younger days, Pandarus in “Troilus
and Cressida”, Orsino in “Twelfth Night”, Egeon in “The Comedy of Errors”,
Brabantio in “Othello” and Adam the aged retainer in “As You Like It”.
SETTING THE SCENE
As there were no sets in Shakespeare’s plays he set the time and place through
words. The audience was accustomed to conjuring up where ever Shakespeare
told them the play was set. It could be a battlement as in “Hamlet”, Ancient
Rome as in “Julius Cesar” of Juliet’s bedroom or balcony for “Romeo and Juliet”.
There were no curtains, very few props and certainly no scenery. Everything
was created through performance and words.
In “Romeo and Juliet” the audience is told that dawn is breaking through the
parting of the lovers after their first and only night together.
Enter ROMEO and JULIET above, at the window
JULIET:
Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
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Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
Romeo
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
ROMEO:
Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
In “King Lear” the impending storm is established during the scene between
Lear with Regan and Goneril. As his rage and passion increases so the
approaching storm gathers force. The stage directions are very specific in the
placement of the sound effects.
KING LEAR:
No, I’ll not week.
I have full cause of weeping:
(Storm and tempest)
But this heart
Shall break into a thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O Fool, I shall go mad!
Lear and his party exit and Cornwall remarks:
Let us withdraw; ‘twill be a storm
Water could not fall onto the stage or as we might do today, have the actors
blown by a wind machine. Shakespeare did not have the ability to create lighting
effects to look like lightening or rain. The storm was created with sound effects
such as cannon balls rolling on a tin tray or the shaking of a sheet of metal
called a thunder sheet.
To set the scene for the heath Shakespeare builds the picture with a description
of the bleakness of the heath:
GLOUCESTER
Alack, the night comes on and the bleak winds
Do sorely ruffle. For many miles about
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There’s scarce a bush
We now have an image of the bare landscape surrounding the castle where
Lear is exposed to the elements. He is wracked by a fierce wind and without
shelter.
The next scene not only reinforces the rage of the wind and rain but the king’s
rage is now indivisible from the tempest of nature.
KENT:
Where’s the King?
GENTLEMAN:
Contending with the fretful elements
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curlèd waters ‘bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage
Catch in their fury and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to out-storm
The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinchèd wold
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs
and bids what will take all.
When we find Lear on the heath we already know what to expect. He is ranting
at the wind and rain in the midst of a fierce downpour
“ Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
We also know that the storm he is enduring physically is also raging in his brain.
Shakespeare further uses words to build these dual images such as
‘contentious storm’, ‘wrathful skies’ ‘groans of roaring wind and rain’ “horrid
thunder’, ‘rumble thy belly-full! Spit fire! Spout rain!
In “Hamlet” Horatio describes seeing the Ghost of Hamlet’s father on the
platform where we watch’d ’Hamlet says to meet there that night ‘twixt eleven
and twelve’ to watch for it to appear again. Having set this up in advance it is
easy for Shakespeare to evoke the scene with a few short exchanges:
HAMLET:
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold
HORATIO:
It is a nipping and an egar air
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HAMLET:
What hour now?
HORATIO:
I think it lacks of twelve.
From these lines we know the time, that it is cold and outdoors.
Later in this scene the Ghost tells us it is almost dawn in two lines:
‘The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire.’
There were no programs so many plays were preceded by dumb shows which
gave a synopsis of the action to follow however Shakespeare did not use this
device in his plays.
The most significant influence upon the plays was the nature of the Elizabethan
stage. Being an apron stage it was impossible to draw curtains to change
scenes so Shakespeare started his scenes with a procession or characters
walking on talking. Other scenes might begin with “Look here he comes” or
another introductory remark. Getting the dead off stage at the end of a tragedy
was another problem, it would spoil the illusion if the dead bodies just got up
and walked off so Shakespeare had to find solutions so bodies could be
concealed or carried off. At the end of Lear when all the bodies are on stage
Albany says “Bear them from hence. Our present business is genreral woe”.
The dying Edmund is removed from the stage with the order “Bear him hence
awhile’
Hamlet says ‘I’ll lugs the guts into a neighbour room’ when the dead Polonius
must be removed allowing the actor to drag the body off stage.
Shakespeare is often praised for having a psychological understanding of his
audience. He did not allow them to rush out into the streets when emotion was
at its height, but calmed them down, sending them out quietly. He certainly
understood the power of theatre for he shows in Julius Caesar how Antony
rouses the crowd and what the results are of sending an audience away in a
highly tense and emotional state. Had he been able to end his tragedies at the
high point he probably would have done so. Take the end of “Othello” for
instance:
‘I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee - no way but this
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.’
Othello falls dead upon Desdemona's bed, the audience is tense, horrified. To
release the tension Lodovico turns upon Iago with:
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‘Look on the tragic loading of this bed,
This is thy work; - the object poisons sight;
Let it be hid.’
The bed is inside the recess of the inner stage and the curtain is drawn across.
Othello and Desdemona may remain hidden until the Players leave the stage
and audience has dispersed. He used this device in “Romeo and Juliet” so that
the lovers could be left entwined in death at the end of the play by closing the
curtain.
The alcove or tiring room was put to great use by Shakespeare to reveal and
conceal beds and fairy bowers, caskets, tombs and inner chambers. Though the
boards of his stage were bare, there was a master of suspense at work and
Shakespeare knew just how to manipulate an audience with dramatic effect and
emotion.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564 – 1616
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare was educated at a local grammar
school and at 18 married 26 year old Anne Hathaway who was already
expecting their first child. They had three children in four years, Susanna and
twins Hamnet and Judith. Around 1585 Shakespeare left for London. Legend
has it that his first job was to hold the horses of the wealthy patrons who
attended the theater. From this lowly beginning he soon became an actor and
then a playwright. His first play Henry V1Part One was written between 1589 –
90 and was quickly followed by Part 2 and Part 3. By the early 1590's
Shakespeare was firmly established in the vibrant world of Elizabethan theater
enjoying a healthy income to match. He bought a large house in Stratford and
frequently after that acquired other property both in Stratford and London. In
1599 the family was granted a coat of arms and thereafter the playwright was
entitled to sign himself, ‘William Shakespeare, Gent’. Under the patronage of
James 1 he and his company became members of the royal household, in
recognition of the honour they changed their name to The King’s Men. This
exulted position confirmed Shakespeare as the leading theatre
producer/playwright of his age. He retired at the age of 48 and died on 23rd April
four years later on his 52nd birthday. Anne Hathaway died eight years later in
1623. Only their eldest child Susanna survived them.
Sources:
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Romeo and Juliet, Penguin Books, 1967. Edited with a commentary by T. J.
B. Spencer 1967. Introduced by Adrian Poole 2005. General introduction and
Chronology Stanley Wells, 2005
Introduction to Romeo and Juliet, Cambridge Text, established by John
Dover Wilson, Cambridge University Press, 1966
Preface, Philip Brockbank, Cambridge Text, established by John Dover
Wilson, Cambridge University Press, 1966
Romeo and Juliet The Warwick Shakespeare, Edited by J.E. Crofts, B Litt.
Blackie and Son Limited London and Glasgow
*1 Stephen Orgel Introduction King Lear the 1608 and 1623 Folio Texts
Introduction to King Lear, The Pelican Shakespeare, Published by The
Penguin Group by G. K. Hunter
Granville Barker’s Prefaces to Shakespeare, King Lear Foreward by Richard
Eyre. Published by Nick Hern Books
Introduction to Hamlet, Cambridge Text, established by John Dover Wilson,
Cambridge University Press, 1966
Preface, Philip Brockbank, Cambridge Text, established by John Dover
Wilson, Cambridge University Press, 1966
Minute History of the Drama. Alice B Fort & Herbert S Kates, New York:
Grosset & Dunlap 1935
www.allshakespeare.com/globe/
Shakespeare The Biography by Peter Ackroyd
Published by Chatto and Windus, 2005
William Shakespeare, The Complete Works. Second Edition. General
Editors Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, Editors Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor,
John Jowett and William Montgomery. Introduction Stanley Wells. Clarendon
Press – Oxford.
CLASS ROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Build a model of The Globe and discuss how Shakespeare would have
directed his play on the stage. Discuss what the audience would have
experienced during an afternoon at a play at The Globe. How would
Shakespeare have staged the balcony scenes? Where would Juliet have
been standing and where would Romeo be onstage when he sees her
from the orchard.
2. Discuss Joe Calarco’s use of additional texts in “R&J” and the effect they
have on the play.
3. Write a contemporary version of Juliet’s speech below. Examine the way
her thoughts shift from positive to negative. Do you think someone today
waiting for a phone call from a boyfriend would have the same reactions
Juliet has to waiting for news of Romeo from the Nurse? How does
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Juliet’s emotional state compare to that a modern girl in a similar
situation?
JULIET
The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;
In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.
O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me:
But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
O God, she comes!
4. DISCUSSION TOPIC: Shakespeare’s Juliet is stronger and wiser than
Romeo. It is she who recognises that things are moving dangerously fast
between them, it is she who is prepared to take a drug to simulate death
knowing she will wake in the family tomb, surely a very frightening
prospect for a thirteen year old. It is Juliet who on discovering Romeo
dead beside her, plunges a knife into her body. Arguably it takes more
strength to commit suicide this way than to take poison.
5. Explore the relationship between Romeo and Friar Laurence by acting
out the scenes between them using Shakespeare’s words and then
contemporary language. Evaluate what the contemporary version reveals
about the intentions of the characters.
6. DEBATE SUBJECT: Is Friar Laurence responsible for the deaths of
Romeo and Juliet? What went wrong with his plan and why. Is he at fault
or was the outcome inevitable?
7. What is the relationship between Romeo and Mercutio? Is Mercutio
secretly in love with Romeo? Does Romeo need to break away from his
mates, Benvolio and Mercutio and their boy-gang pranks when he falls in
love with Juliet? Does Mercutio understand the depth of Romeo’s love for
Juliet? How do these relationships affect and inform the interpretation of
the play “Romeo and Juliet” as played by the students in “R&J”?
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8. Take one of Romeo or Juliet’s speeches and explore the punctuation,
analyzing the changes in thought and emotion. Rewrite the same speech
in contemporary speech using the same punctuation. Perform both
versions in class and discuss what is revealed by the exercise.
9. Moral Dilemma: Juliet sits facing the various characters in the play,
Romeo, Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse, Friar Laurence, Paris etc. They
each put forward an argument as to why she should or should not marry
Romeo. When all the arguments have been put Juliet must make a
decision – will she marry Romeo or obey her father and marry Paris.
10. The status game. Take a deck of cards and remove the court cards.
Distribute a card to each character and ask them to play their roles
according to the level of the cards. If the scene selected is between
Romeo and Juliet and Juliet draws a nine and Romeo a five, they will
play the scene with Juliet as the dominant character. Then reverse the
cards and play it again with Romeo dominant. In this way the power plays
and the dramatic thrust of the scene is revealed and it is easy to see
which character Shakespeare intended to be driving the scene.
11. Play the status game for the Wedding scene in Friar Laurence’s Cell as
the four students in “R&J”. Which character is dominant and why? Are
there any differences in intention revealed between “R&J” and “Romeo
and Juliet”.
12. Find all the references in “Romeo and Juliet” to day and night, light and
dark. Discuss the context in which Shakespeare uses these references
and what dramatic effect or purpose they have in the play.
13. Find all the ways Romeo uses contrasting words or images in the
speech below. List them and discuss why Shakespeare has chosen to
use these devices.
ROMEO
Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
sick health!
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Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
14. Shakespeare uses imagery and literary devices in the following speech.
Make up a list of the images and explain how they show us that Juliet is
ready for a physical encounter with Romeo. Explain the dramatic irony of
this scene. What does the audience know about Romeo that Juliet does
not?
JULIET:
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.
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THE PLAYS
In Chronological Order*
15. Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590-91)
16. The Taming of The Shrew (1590-91)
17. Henry V1, Part II (1591)
18. Henry VI, Part III (1591)
19. Henry VI, Part I Perhaps with Thomas Nashe) (1592)
20. Titus Andronicus (Perhaps with George Peele) (1592)
21. Richard III (1592-3)
22. Venus and Adonis (poem) 1592-3)
23. Rape of Lucrece (poem) (1593-4)
24. The Comedy of Errors (1594)
25. Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594-5)
26. Edward III (authorship uncertain) (1594-5)
27. Richard II (1595)
28. Romeo and Juliet (1595)
29. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595)
30. King John (1596)
31. The Merchant of Venice (1596-7)
32. Henry IV, Part II (1597-8)
33. Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
34. Henry V (1598-9)
35. Julius Caesar (1599)
36. As You Like It (1599-1600)
37. Hamlet (1600-1601)
38. Twelfth Night (1600-1601)
39. The Phoenix and The Turtle (poem) (by 1601)
40. Troilus and Cressida (1602)
41. The Sonnets (poems) (1593-1603 and later)
42. Measure For Measure (1603)
43. A Lover’s Complaint (poem) (1603-4)
44. Sir Thomas More (in part) (1603-4)
45. Othello (1603-4)
46. All’s Well That Ends Well (1604-5)
47. Timon of Athens (with Thomas Middleton (1605)
48. King Lear (1605-6)
49. Macbeth (1606)
50. Anthony and Cleopatra (1606)
51. Pericles (with George Wilkins) (1607)
52. Coriolanus (1608)
53. The Winter’s Tale (1609)
54. Cymberline (1609)
55. The Tempest (1610)
56. Henry VIII (Shakespeare and John Fletcher;
known in its time as All Is True (1613)
57. Cardenio (Shakespeare and Fletcher; lost (1613)
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58. The Two Noble Kinsmen (Shakespeare and Fletcher) 1613-14
*Complied by Stanley Wells 2005. Printed in the Penguin Shakespeare, Romeo
and Juliet, 2005.
Based on the ‘Canon and Chronology’ section in William Shakespeare: A
Textual Companion, by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and
William Montgomery (1987)
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