While this play holds the distinction of being one of the most popular in all of english-speaking (and even non-english-speaking) culture, it contains some truly annoying personalities that still somehow charm us. Romeo and Juliet are really lucky that they are so damned lyrical because they are THE WORST teenagers on the planet. However, Mercutio is the absolute prize-winner. He’s the uber-bad-boy-best-friend with whom no parent wants their kid to fraternize but proves so goddamned irresistible that our William had the prudence to kill him off in Act III. The play might as well have been called Mercutio & Mercutio if he hadn’t done that.
IMHO, the greatest irony is about how this play is taught in high school. Instruction manages to gloss over most of the bawdiest language and references--just the kind of shit modern-day teens love. If the Department of Education truly wished for our youth to cultivate an appreciation for the Old Bard, they would point out every vulgar buzzword and idiom dropped by these hormone-soaked characters. Because it’s HILARIOUS. Downright nasty. This is, of course, not limited to R + J. Ever since I re-discovered Shakespeare in my adulthood several years ago, I have never been able to look at a fig the same way. I love figs.
Also, there’s the timeless theme of the OLDs against the YOUNG’UNs, battling out their pointlessly opposing values, which always brings the youths to the yard to drink some milkshakes. I think.
We are introduced to our fair Verona and its inhabitants with a Chorus providing a lush and oft-quoted Prologue, and the Chorus returns for Act II, never to be heard from again. I prefer the very consistent Chorus appearances from Henry V anyway, for the record. Anyhoo, this Chorus gives no SPOILER ALERT before it gives us the tea on how this story will end.
Next, we see a handful of Capulet and Montague servants picking a fight with each other on the street until Benvolio shows up and tries to break it up. Tybalt comes in and fires everyone up again. Local citizens who are 100% DONE with these family brawls start punching them all out until Montague and Capulet themselves arrive. Just in time, Prince Escalus jumps in to warn everyone off further rows under pain of death. Lady Montague is thankful that Romeo was not present for this shit. Benvolio informs her that Romeo’s too busy sulking around to get into a fray anyway and they all wonder what the hell is eating him. Benvolio finds Romeo and they rap together about the reason for Romeo’s emo shit: an ice queen named Rosaline who will return none of Romeo’s romantic advances. Benvolio is just like, “Dude, fuck Rosaline! There are far tastier bitches out there!”
Meanwhile, County Paris is happily discussing marriage with Capulet, who pretends to be reticent about Paris wooing his 13-year-old Juliet. He invites Paris to his big shindig that evening to give Paris an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with his daughter. Capulet sends a servant out to inform all the invited guests about the clambake and the servant, being illiterate, runs into Romeo, and asks him to please read the list. Romeo finds that everyone and their brother is invited, including Rosaline. Benvolio says “PERFECT! Let’s crash this par-tay so you can compare goddamn Rosaline with all the other hotties and see that you can do better.” Romeo, the moron, still pines for Rosaline.
Upstairs, Real Housewife Lady Capulet nervously incites an conversation with her daughter about marriage and can’t make up her mind as to whether she wants the Nurse to join in on the awkwardness. Lady Capulet talks up Paris and asks if Juliet fancies him. Juliet shrugs and the Nurse tells her to check him out during the party.
Just up the street that evening, Mercutio leads Romeo, Benvolio and some other hangers-on to Capulet’s house, as Mercutio is on the VIP list. Romeo is having none of it, but Mercutio breaks out his patented Queen Mab (i.e. Madam Tramp) speech:
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she--
Romeo interrupts, saying Mercutio “Talks of nothing” and Mercutio agrees because “no-thing” is slang for “vagina” (which totally puts a spin on Much Ado About Nothing). Romeo says he had a bad dream about this and everyone dons masks and drag him along to the party anyway.
Inside the Capulet’s sweet pad, the celebration is in full swing. Romeo immediately zeroes in on Juliet across the hall and forgets himself, saying out loud how mesmerized he is by her beauty. Tybalt overhears this and wants to choke Romeo, but Capulet stops him, saying he hears Romeo’s a decent guy and he’s in no mood to let another goddamn brawl ruin his fiesta. Tybalt drops it, but vows to get back at Romeo later.
Romeo runs up to Juliet and their first exchange makes a fuckin’ sonnet because damnit, this is the ultimate love-at-first-sight story in history and we will not be allowed to forget it:
ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
The Nurse pulls them apart and tells the smitten Romeo that she is Capulet’s daughter and then Juliet asks who he is and she says he’s a Montague for FFS. Both are SHOOK.
The Chorus returns to say that Romeo’s little brain has forgotten about Rosaline.
Romeo is sneaking around outside the walled-in garden of the Capulet mansion as Mercutio et. al. are taunting him with lewd phrases. Romeo climbs over the wall (apparently this was an allusion to when men wanted to gain knowledge, they would climb over monastery walls to enter the brotherhood and become a monk) and sneaks around Juliet’s backyard. Here, the world-famous balcony scene ensues (and Franco Zeffirelli decided to leave out the line “it is the East and Juliet is the sun” in his film adaptation because Zeffirelli is a shit). This scene is so chock full of mellifluous metaphors it’s sickening. They don’t part with sweet sorrow until they vow to meet up to figure out a wedding date (fucking tomorrow).
Romeo scampers off to Friar Lawrence (dear, dear sweet Friar Lawrence, who is such a hopeful romantic, bless his dumb ass) who delivers my favorite speech from the play:
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave that is her womb,
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
It’s a fine bit of philosophy that tugs at my greenthumb’s heart.
Romeo dishes to Lawrence about the night before and how he’s over Rosaline and on top of Juliet and for a second, Lawrence cringes, but then realizes that this could be good for the two families who might reconcile (sweet, stupid Friar Lawrence).
Benvolio and Mercutio are searching for Romeo and as soon as he shows up, they poke fun at him for being out late with a woman. The Nurse shows up with word from Juliet and while she and Romeo chat, the other boys cackle and lob lascivious insults. The Nurse and Mercutio are nearly equally matched--one cannot completely offend the other--and prove a nice bit of comedic respite from all the serious shmaltz. Romeo tells her to tell Juliet to meet him in Lawrence’s cell that afternoon so they can elope.
The Nurse returns to Juliet and pretends to be too tired and achy and out of breath to tell her the news until Juliet finally wrings it out of her. She delights in the prospect of marriage efore the day is out.
The lovers meet with Lawrence, who has to calm Romeo down just before Juliet arrives lest he spontaneously combust. It’s so dumb because even Lawrence, who agrees to this wild match, speaks to the haste of it all:
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
You said it, Friar.
Benvolio urges Mercutio to give up strolling around on this sultry day because a brawl is likely to break out any second. Tybalt appears with his gang, out searching for Romeo. Tybalt and Mercutio talk shit until Romeo comes and tries to chill them out. Mercutio takes umbrage at the shade Tybalt is throwing at Romeo and it kicks off. Romeo steps between them but Tybalt takes a stab under Romeo’s arm and hits Mercutio instead. Romeo believes Mercutio’s insistence that it’s just “a scratch” and Mercutio keeps blabbing:
No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
Twice, he spits “A plague o’ both your houses!” and dies. Romeo is incensed and goes after Tybalt, slays him, then runs off. The Prince, Montagues, and Capulets suddenly crowd in and ask Benvolio WTF just happened. The Prince says that because his kinsman (Mercutio) has been killed, it’s personal now, and Romeo is officially banished.
Juliet is most eloquent in her impatience for her new husband to arrive:
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.
The Nurse enters and brings tidings of death and Juliet immediately thinks Romeo is dead because nothing could be worse than that, so the Nurse gets miffed and says “No, you little shit, your cousin is dead! Murdered by your punk husband!” and Juliet wails and weeps about how everything is terrible. To be fair though, based on the depth and strength of her feelings and vocabulary, Juliet went from a budding 13-year-old girl to a woman overnight. I do love how Willy gave the best lines to the young girl in this play, out-stripping every other man around her.
The Nurse goes to Friar Lawrence, who is housing Romeo on the lam, and tells the young man to climb the rope ladder to Juliet’s chamber window that night. Lawrence has to talk Romeo off a cliff, telling him that he could have had it so much worse, he should count his damn blessings that he’s alive and has Juliet and is only banished and not sentenced to execution. Lawrence orders him to go to his wife, then flee the moment the sun comes up to Mantua, where he should lay low until Lawrence sends word to steal Juliet away with him and live happily ever after!
At Capulet’s house, Capulet is conspiring with Paris to marry Juliet off to him in a few days’ time, but Juliet refuses to come down from her room because she is so distraught about Tybalt’s death (that’s the only thing bothering her, clearly).
Upstairs, the lovers are waking up and find every verbal flourish as a reason to sleep in, but eventually the Nurse warns that Lady Capulet is coming up to speak with Juliet. Juliet sends Romeo out the window and Lady Capulet comes in to try to soothe her daughter’s sadness by promising to poison Romeo for killing Tybalt and Juliet has a hard time acting like that’s fine with her. Lady Capulet also informs her of the marriage deal struck with Paris. Juliet freaks right out, squabbles with her father, seeks comfort from the Nurse, and even she, her trusted Nurse, tells her that she might as well give up on Romeo and wed this Paris guy because he’s super handsome and isn’t inconveniently banished like Juliet’s first husband. Juliet wants to just die.
Paris goes to Friar Lawrence to ask him to marry him and Juliet. Juliet pops in and the three of them have a super awkward conversation where Juliet and the Friar are talking past Paris so he doesn’t know she’s already taken. Paris finally leaves so Juliet can “confess” and as soon as Paris is gone, she insists she will stab herself unless Lawrence can fix it. He tells her to cool her tits, and floats the idea of giving her a distillment that will make her appear dead so she’s brought to the Capulet family crypt where she will wake up and Lawrence will have sent a message to Romeo to come and collect her and run off to Mantua. Juliet’s grabby hands take the poison and she goes home to pretend like everything’s fine.
Capulet is prepping for the wedding day, and Juliet comes home and apologizes for her earlier tantrum and days she’s fine with marrying Paris now. Capulet is so thrilled that he moves up the wedding to the next day. Lady Capulet insists this is not enough time to plan a party and her husband says he’ll take care of all the chores. When Juliet goes to bed, she says “Farewell!” and drinks off the potion, a dagger close by as a backup plan.
The next day, Capulet is buzzing around getting last minute arrangements made. The Nurse goes upstairs to rouse Juliet and discovers her “dead.” Everyone and their brother enters the room and wail and cry and their pathetic reactions really throw into sharp relief just how splendid Juliet’s language is. Capulet tells the musicians to change all their celebratory songs to mourning “dumps” and the scene ends with some seriously odd banter between them in which the Nurse’s manservant requests the musicians play a song he likes and they argue and the musicians just want to get food and cash. What the actual fuck?
Romeo wakes up in Mantua and talks to himself about a dream he had in which he was dead and Juliet’s kiss brought him back to life (*GROAN*) and Mr. Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat here interprets that as a good omen (*eyeroll*). His buddy Balthasar shows up to pop his bubble and inform him that he saw Juliet get interred back home. Romeo screams at the stars, scurries to a sleazy apothecary to procure some poison, then promises to kill himself at Juliet’s grave.
Friar John, Friar Lawrence’s inept brother friend, hands Lawrence back the letter he was supposed to give to Romeo about their plan to wake the not-dead Juliet because PLAGUE prevented him from delivering it. HOW RELEVANT AND INCONVENIENT. We all know that feeling!
Lawrence orders John to grab a crowbar so they can get Juliet out of the crypt ASAP before Romeo inevitably arrives and offs himself.
Romeo arrives and intends to off himself, but not before finding Paris very respectfully laying flowers at Juliet’s crypt and murdering him for getting in his way. Romeo nicely lays Paris’ body next to Juliet’s however, because you know, he’s not a total douchecanoe. Romeo speaks lovely words over Juliet’s body, stares at Tybalt and Paris awkwardly, throws back the poison, and dies. Lawrence comes and freaks out when he sees the open crypt. Juliet rouses, asking where Romeo is, sees him and crouches by his body despite Lawrence’s warning that someone is coming. Juliet has even more lovely words about her undying love, grabs a dagger, sheaths it in her chest and dies.
The graveyard Watch arrives, gathering up everybody in the play to look upon this pitiful scene. Prince Escalus berates the Montagues and Capulets. Lawrence rehashes the entire secret plot (I feel like Billy could have found a more concise way to do this, as it wasn’t necessary for the audience to hear this exposition-after-the-fact), and wants to take the blame. The Prince says “Naw, bitch, this is the fault of the family feud, and they are suffering the consequences.” Montague and Capulet come together and agree to erect golden monuments to their two beloved children so everyone remembers how fucking pointless all this was.
After watching the Zeffirelli version of this, and then the Baz Lurhman one, I actually couldn’t bring myself to watch a third version in a row because now matter how well one knows this story, it is goddamn heartbreaking and it’s too much to bear in one week. It’s especially hard on someone who not too long ago believed they had an undying and fantastic love only to have it be destroyed like a glass sculpture thrown off a 100-story building onto the sidewalk below. I can only take so much.
In high school, a teacher had us watch the Zeffireli version. I remember very clearly how during that one bedroom scene, an adult held up a file folder against the screen the moment Olivia Hussey’s bare chest flashed on the cathode-ray tube. Everyone in class thought that was hysterical. I enjoyed re-watching that one if only to briefly appreciate the very young Michael York as Tybalt and Laurence of Olivier reciting the opening lines.
Many people have mixed and strong opinions on Baz Lurhmann’s version. To them I say, “Well, it’s Baz, what could you expect?” Personally, I believe his treatment is bold and necessary, an idiosyncratic and cunning addition to the long line of productions in history. Romeo +Juliet is vital Shakespeare. It’s relevant Shakespeare.
West Side Story, of course, is a profound achievement from every corner of artistic expression. It’s not Shakespeare’s language, but it’s a hugely successful and effective “translation” of the themes and trials of American youth in contemporary life. Enough cannot be said about its excellence.
Perhaps because Romeo and Juliet is a love story, its thematic universality lends itself exceptionally well to adaptation into “present-day” settings. It’s one of a handful of Shakespeare plays that truly transposes itself onto almost any culture and time period. It’s quite something.
The best aspect of this play is that the principal female role is so prominent, and is given balanced consideration with the principal male. Both Juliet and her Romeo are besotted on equal terms. It’s the first time in these early-to-middle plays that Shakespeare seems to deeply understand the feminine experience of love. Scholars agree that old William must have been enamored of someone at the time of writing this and many of his sonnets… either that “dark lady” or the “fair youth” lodged in his brain/heart/loins and forever inspired both his most soaring and tragic stories.
Next week contains… more blind lovers! Running around in a forest! With faeries! On drugs! It’s all fun and games until someone turns into a donkey.