Some Public Brainstorming

I just finished up writing a bit about our upcoming show over on my personal 'blog, Odin's Aviary. You can read the whole entry here. But in pertinent part, and purely in the interest of putting down some ideas and impressions:

"Things get out of hand." This sums up pretty nicely for me what I'm imagining as a central action of our play. Much of the action of the basic story reminds me of children at play (and I refer to every character here, except possibly the prince) who get a little out of control with their fussing and fighting. Before you know it, someone's heart's broken, someone's eye's poked out, and everyone's pointing fingers in order to avoid more hurt. This meshes well with clown theory as I understand it, because clowns are very much like babies, or alien visitors, experiencing everything for the first time. They still have to learn concepts like "hot," much less "love." As it stands, our version will have only Romeo and Juliet as clowns, and the rest of the world populated by masked commedia dell'arte characters. This stands to drive the action right along, as commedia characters are largely appetite-driven and selfish. It's exciting to think of our first -- in five+ years of making dell'arte-inspired theatre, mind you -- masked show in general. I hope we can help our audiences see the masks as they were intended; more caricature than disguise, more revealing than deceitful.

Regardless of style choices, it will I hope retain the sense of contemporary fun that has been in every Zuppa show through the years. In our workshops, as we explored the seeming despair over Rosaline that Romeo exhibits on his introduction, we thought of having him accidentally pulling out moves borrowed from Hamlet, dressed in black, contemplating a skull wearing a red nose. I'd love to have movie posters up for other Shakespeare plays, borrowing from Silent Lives the notion of characters who learn their behavior from popular culture. The humor should come from the moment and character, not necessarily the indications of a joke in the script. Heather and I are already discussing the possible humor of feigned (or frustrated) exits, a running joke about people trying to leave stage and continually being called back. The balcony scene is a great one for this and comes to mind immediately, but also on the way to the party Romeo keeps trying to leave. The topper is the "morning after" scene, probably. Great place for a fart joke there, too, I can't help but notice. (Hopefully someone will shoot me down on this; "that may be a great idea for
next year's show...") "It is the lark that sings so out of tune..."

Wiki-Wiki-...W.?

Some interesting tidbits about the play from Wikipedia (which, of course, means they should all be taken with a shaker of salt). I wonder -- should we get Kim W. to work on this with us soonish? She was a treasure for Prohibitive Standards. Tidbits:

• Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to Ancient Greece. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562, and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1582.


• The earliest known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale is the story of Mariotto and Gianozza by Masuccio Salernitano, in the 33rd novel of his Il Novellino published in 1476.[8] Salernitano sets the story in Siena [!!!] and insists its events took place in his own lifetime.


• A few of the earlier versions of the story insist that it actually took place, and that the play is based on personal observance.


• Shakespeare did not invent the characters of the nurse and Benvolio; Matteo Bandello did, in 1554.


• Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander and Dido, Queen of Carthage, both similar stories written in Shakespeare's day, are thought to be less of a direct influence, although they may have created an atmosphere in which tragic love stories could thrive.[7]


• Poet John Dryden wrote ... in praise of the play and its comic character Mercutio: "Shakespear show'd the best of his skill in his Mercutio, and he said himself, that he was forc'd to kill him in the third Act, to prevent being killed by him."[22]


• There are many moral interpretations of the play. Are their deaths the result of accident, tragic flaw, or in punishment of the feuding families?


• The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet form over the course of the play. ... Shakespeare uses a variety of poetic forms throughout the play. ... For example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the play, he attempts to use the Petrarchan sonnet form. Petrarchan sonnets were often used by men to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for them to attain, as in Romeo's situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is used by Lady Capulet to describe Count Paris to Juliet as a handsome man.[28] When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes from the Petrarchan (which was becoming archaic in Shakespeare's day) to a then more contemporary sonnet form, using "pilgrims" and "saints" as metaphors.[28] Finally, when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet form to pledge his love, but Juliet breaks it by saying "Dost thou love me?"[29] By doing this, she searches for true expression, rather than a poetic exaggeration of their love.[28] Juliet uses monosyllabic words with Romeo, but uses formal language with Paris.[30] Other forms in the play include an epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, and an elegy by Paris.[28] Shakespeare saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at times he uses it for other characters, such as Mercutio.[28] Humour, also, is important: scholar Molly Mahood identifies at least 175 puns and wordplays in the text.[31] Many of these jokes are sexual in nature, especially those involving Mercutio and the Nurse.[32]


• On their first meeting, Romeo and Juliet use a form of communication recommended by many etiquette authors in Shakespeare's day: metaphor. By using metaphors of saints and sins, Romeo was able to test Juliet's feelings for him in a non-threatening way. This method was recommended by Baldassare Castiglione (whose works had been translated into English by this time). He pointed out that if a man used a metaphor as an invitation, the woman could pretend she did not understand him, and he could retreat without losing honour.


• Friar Lawrence's plan for Juliet's salvation bears a resemblance to the story of Jesus Christ's martyrdom and resurrection.


• Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet spans a period of four-to-six days, in contrast to Brooke's poem's spanning nine months.[54]


• All in all, no fewer than 103 references to time are found in the play, adding to the illusion of its passage.[28][59]


• Thomas Otway's The History and Fall of Caius Marius, one of the more extreme of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare, debuted in 1680. The scene is shifted from Renaissance Verona to ancient Rome; Romeo is Marius, Juliet is Lavinia, the feud is between patricians and plebeians; Juliet/Lavinia wakes from her potion before Romeo/Marius dies. Otway's version was a hit, and was acted for the next seventy years.[75] His innovation in the closing scene was even more enduring, and was used in adaptations throughout the next 200 years...


• The earliest known production in North America was an amateur one: on 23 March 1730, a physician named Joachimus Bertrand placed an advertisement in the Gazette newspaper in New York, promoting a production in which he would play the apothecary.[81] The first professional performances of the play in North America were those of the Hallam Company.[82]


• Not until 1845 did Shakespeare's original [unadapted play] return to the stage in the United States with the sisters Susan and Charlotte Cushman as Juliet and Romeo, respectively[83] ... . Cushman adhered to Shakespeare's version, beginning a string of eighty-four performances. Her portrayal of Romeo was considered genius by many. The Times wrote: "For a long time Romeo has been a convention. Miss Cushman's Romeo is a creative, a living, breathing, animated, ardent human being."[85] Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that "no-one would ever have imagined she was a woman".[86] Cushman's success broke the Garrick tradition [of adaptation] and paved the way for later performances to return to the original storyline.[75]


• Throughout the nineteenth century, Romeo and Juliet had been Shakespeare's most popular play, measured by the number of professional performances. In the twentieth century it would become the second most popular, behind Hamlet.[92]


• Peter Brook's 1947 version was the beginning of a different style of Romeo and Juliet performances. Brook was less concerned with realism, and more concerned with translating the play into a form that could communicate with the modern world. He argued, "A production is only correct at the moment of its correctness, and only good at the moment of its success."[75] Brook excluded the final reconciliation of the families from his performance text.[95]


• At least 24 operas have been based on Romeo and Juliet.[106]


• The play influenced several jazz works, including Peggy Lee's Fever.[117] Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder contains a piece entitled "The Star-Crossed Lovers"[118] in which the pair are represented by blended alto saxophones: critics noted that Juliet's sax dominates the piece, rather than offering an image of equality.[119]


• Romeo and Juliet had a profound influence on subsequent literature. Previously, romance had not even been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy.[125] In Harold Bloom's words, Shakespeare "invented the formula that the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow of death."[126]


• In 2006, Disney's High School Musical made use of Romeo and Juliet's plot, placing the two young lovers in rival high school cliques instead of feuding families.[159]

...Oh shit. You mean I'm gonna have to watch that movie?