(27) Romeo and Juliet

Hey ho! Sorry for the relatively long absence (did anyone notice?), but I really wanted to spend some time on this one…and I’m glad I did. In case you haven’t heard, this is a pretty good play. It’s full of the typical Shakespeare fare: great characters, excellent language (including lots and lots of salacious puns), complex thematic threads, and so on. All the things we have seen before, except this time around it seemed just a bit sharper, especially the language; there are so many memorable and famous lines in this play:

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.”
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
“A plague o' both your houses!”
“O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you…”
“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
“A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.”

And so on. Thus, given the much heralded pedigree of this play, I decided that I would read multiple editions, for a fresh take (and a proper treatment). Bouncing around between the different editions was interesting, giving me additional perspective and detail. So, in a list, I read the following:

Cambridge School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
The Applause Shakespeare Library: Romeo and Juliet
The Riverside Edition: Romeo and Juliet

I also saw the 1997 movie version starring DiCaprio and Danes, a version where “Romeo leads the thug life, Juliet packs a semiautomatic, and the Bard get a taste of “Pulp Fiction,” as per one reviewer, quoted on the back of the DVD case (more on this later).

Movie aside, these three text versions all had separate and interesting presentation goals. The Cambridge version presents the play in textbook fashion, describing and analyzing, on every right hand page, what’s going on with the verse printed on the left side, providing a running commentary throughout. So, one might find a list of coined phrases from the play (wild goose chase, on pain of death, star-crossed lovers, etc. There are about thirty in this play), which is kind of fun to know. Or this bit of advice around the famous “What’s in a name?” passage:

“So why do we call a rose a rose? Improvise what would happen if you went around calling things by different names (e.g., try calling you home “restaurant,” and so on). Or, choose a new name for yourself, maybe from a different ethnic group. What happens if you insisted in being called that name everywhere, or only in certain places.”

I like this, this weirdness and curiosity around an old Shakespearean line. In addition to this, the running commentary was accompanied by longer analysis at the end of each act and a lengthy analysis at the end of the play. My favorite from that was this: “Why did Romeo and Juliet die? Fate? Chance? Adolescent passion? The feud? Their fathers? Love? Friar Lawrence?” Good questions, and all explored well in the Cambridge edition.

The Applause version was different...and similar. Like the Cambridge version, it presented side-by-side analysis of the text. However, it also provided stage directions and directorial advice, for anyone interested in actually producing the thing. Reading these directions gives you the text as play, or at least what it could mean to exist as a play, describing all the decisions the director needs to make (endless decisions, really) to convey meaning. Subtle things, these decisions, and they all have to come together coherently or the play will be a mess. For example, the commentary might say:

 “Some productions interpret Shakespeare’s stage directions here to mean that Juliet actually hugs the nurse, which reinforces her youth and adolescence. However, in the 1994 Folger production, the director decided to have her only loosely grasp the nurse’s elbow, in order to anticipate her passage into adulthood later in Act II.”

Most of the comments were more complex (and better written) than this, but you get the point. I liked reading these bits of advice, because the only thing Shakespeare seems to have cared about (he never personally published anything) was theater production, not written text, so experiencing the play this way seemed more authentic. However, it was laborious at times, reading all this text along with the play, something that the last version I read (Riverside) handles well. Most of the plays I have read so far have been out of the Riverside, and there is a reason. I like the minimalism of the notes and the compactness of the text. It leaves you alone but still provides enough background, in the footnotes and endnotes, to support you when the meaning is too obscure. I like this. It’s more immersive experience, in a rhyming/poetic/right-brainy way.

As for the movie version (are you still with me?), it’s good, but different. I saw this in the theater when it first came out, way back when (1997) with my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I remember leaving the theater very impressed. It is interesting, an adaptation set in gangland Los Angeles. It does seem a little dated though, watching it now, in its jumpy “MTV-ness,” but it’s still good, mainly because the lead actors are so good (especially Claire Danes, Leonardo DiCaprio, and a very excellent Tybalt from John Leguizamo). They make you easily forgive the sometimes over-the-top showiness of the movie. They really nail their parts, so it works for me.

So that’s the post I guess…a sort of comparison between editions, something not new to these pages. I hope you weren't too bored. Just one final thing: it is important to note that all of these editions use Shakespeare’s language, something that shouldn’t bear mentioning. Unfortunately, there is a movement afoot to modernize Shakespeare’s text to make him more accessible, to modernize his words so that all of us “regular folk” get it, like in this recent movie production. Don’t do this, director-people. At the risk of sounding elitist, I think this is a big mistake. If you want the story without the real words, go watch West Side Story. If you want the real thing, read the play in the original text. So you may have to work a little. It’s worth it.