General characteristics of the plot
Critical overview on the play
The way Romeo falls in love with Juliet at first sight
Character relationships of Romeo and Juliet with Mercutio and Nurse
The way Romeo falls in love with Juliet at first sight
Peculiarities of stagecraft[8]
Contrasting the film and the play[9]
Stagecraft/appeal to audience
Навигация
Contrasting the film and the play[9]
Romeo and Juliet - immortal tragedy of W.S.
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7.2 Contrasting the film and the play[9]
To assess Baz Luhrmann's use of setting in his film, Romeo + Juliet, we can begin by contrasting the film with the play as it was originally performed in the 16th-century theatre. The key difference between the manner in which the film and the play deal with location is that the film is primarily an image-intensive medium that can visually show the audience the locale. Shakespearean drama, on the other hand, was written to be heard as an auditory experience. Shakespeare's audience referred to going to hear a play rather than see it, emphasizing that the Elizabethan theater was an aural rather than visual experience. On stage, the characters described the setting in their speeches. The actor's words had to convey all necessary information about plot, characters, and setting because the action took place on a bare, open-air stage, with only a few props and limited costumes. The plays were performed in the afternoon, and the playhouses did not have the advantages of lighting or special effects. For example, the scenes which take place at night make repeated references to objects associated with darkness, such as the moon, stars, and artificial sources of light, such as lamps and torches, to help create a sense of atmosphere and setting. The Prologue sets the scene in both the play and the film. In Romeo + Juliet, Luhrmann presents the Prologue as a news bulletin that gives the events a feeling of immediacy - the urgency of an on-the-spot news report. The news broadcaster has replaced the Shakespearean Chorus for a modern audience while retaining the Chorus's function of providing commentary on events before they happen.
Luhrmann emphasizes the setting as the Prologue ends. The camera zooms forward to scenes of Verona, with the words "in fair Verona" flashing on the screen. Luhrmann presents Verona as a modern city, dominated by scenes of chaotic urban violence. Aerial shots pan across the cityscape as police cars and helicopters dart about, and human casualties are strewn across the ground. Watching impassively is an enormous statue of Jesus. These opening shots of a city divided by violence sets the scene for the subsequent action of the film.
These vivid location shots perform the same function as the Prologue for Shakespeare's first audience. A 16th-century playgoer would have associated the hot climate, fiery, passionate nature of the people, and strong sense of family honor with the Italian locale. By comparison, the film puts the viewer in the midst of the strife-torn city infected with crime and decay. The film uses these graphic images of violence to communicate the setting to the audience. In the film, the first six lines of the Prologue are repeated as a voice-over to accompany more news footage covering the latest outbreak of violence caused by the feud. Media coverage of the civil unrest stresses how the feud affects the entire city. As the voice reads, "Two houses both alike in dignity," the camera pulls back to reveal the photographs of both families on the front page of the city's newspaper. The next two lines of the Prologue are displayed as newspaper headlines and juxtaposed with clips of riot police attempting to restore order on the streets. The media's presentation of the feud illustrates the impact of the "ancient grudge" on the city while importing the play's introductory content in a format familiar to a modern audience. Both the Prologue and the opening scene of the film use setting to establish the opposing parties. In the film version, we see how the two opposed families dominate Verona Beach from the way skyscrapers bearing the names Montague and Capulet overshadow the city's horizon. Luhrmann follows this image with photographs of the two families on the front of the newspaper separated by a photograph of the statue of Jesus. The repeated focus on the Jesus statue and other religious icons comments on how religion, like the law, is no longer an effective means of maintaining peace and harmony in modern society. Shakespeare's disregard of religion as a force in maintaining social order may not have been so blatant as Luhrmann's treatment in the film. Shakespeare presents the Friar as a well-intentioned character despite the Friar's impotence to affect the tragic outcome of the action.
In the opening scene, the city of Verona is renamed Verona Beach, evoking America's famous city on the beach, Miami. The film draws on pop-culture images such as those from Miami Vice, which depicted both urban glamour and crime. Luhrmann clearly distinguishes the downtown area from the beach. He associates the city with the violence of the feud and the idyllic beach with love and peace.
The film illustrates these opposing forces through the use of a fire and water motif. In both the news footage and an encounter between the Montagues and Capulets at a gas station, flames repeatedly engulf the surroundings. "Fiery" Tybalt in particular seems to have a distinctly combustible effect on his surroundings. Romeo and Juliet, in contrast, are connected with water throughout the film. We first see Romeo on the beach looking to the ocean. Later, Romeo and Juliet see each other for the first time through a fish tank, and the famous balcony scene takes place in a swimming pool.
The beach, through its connection with the sea, becomes a place for change as opposed to the concrete, unchanging nature of the city. Luhrmann uses the beach as the place where the worlds of love and conflict clash when peaceable Romeo encounters "fiery" Tybalt. Moments later, Mercutio is killed there, symbolizing a loss of innocence, a violation of purity, and a defamation of a natural order.
Luhrmann places a huge Elizabethan stage on the beach to acknowledge the film's awareness of its Shakespearean heritage. The stage also provides several characters an alternative vehicle for expressing their emotional development, or lack thereof. Luhrmann presents a youthful, immature Romeo seated on stage, delivering his Rosaline-inspired "O brawling love" speech as a voice-over. The speech sounds stilted, stiff, and staged as though Romeo were a young, incompetent actor who merely recites his lines mechanically without understanding their meaning.
Luhrmann chooses a modern city as the setting for his film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet to present a chaotic urban world familiar to a 20th-century cinema audience. The media coverage of the feud makes the play's events familiar to a modern audience as they watch violent video of the chaos on the streets of Verona Beach and are drawn into the feud-ravaged world of the film.
The updated and renamed Verona Beach is a clever mechanism by which peaceful and violent worlds collide.
8.2 Comparing A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet (Lesson Plan)
Key questions:
1. The course of true love
2. Friar Laurence and the Nurse
3. Almost fairy time: Verona and Athens
4. Tragedy and comedy: the problem of fathers and daughters
5. Contrast of order and disorder
6. Pyramus and Thisbe and the plays in performance
7. Conclusion
For the best understanding of the play “Romeo and Juliet”we are required to study one or more of Shakespeare's plays for makink the comparative analysis.. This task will allow us to discuss two plays. We could write at great length but this is not necessary, or even sensible. We will not try to retell the plot of either play as a narrative (story). We shall only look at how the play works on stage: use of props, costume and physical actions - either as suggested in the text, or as these appeared in any versions we have seen in performance. We should consider effects of language and imagery, in context. Below are some ideas, which could form the outline of a response to the plays. We may find these helpful; ignore those that aren't.
When you (speak or) write about the play, you must refer to evidence: either quote dialogue, or explain what is happening in terms of action. Ideally, you should give Act and Scene (Roman [e.g. III, ii] or Arabic [e.g. 3.2] numbers) and line numbers (not page numbers - do you know why?). Always comment on, or explain the point of, what you quote. Do not write the verb quote at any point in your work, unless it is to explain that one character in the play quotes another! In formal written English, quote is a verb and quotation is the corresponding noun. Quote as a noun is fine in speech, especially when referring to an estimate for work to be done (builder's quote).
The two plays were first performed at around the same time in the 1590s. They have obvious similarities of plot and theme, but clearly different structure and outcome. Briefly (no more than half a page) summarise these similarities and differences.
"The course of true love never did run smooth"
How far are Lysander's words proved true by the (total) events in either play? Are they a more suitable motto for one than the other? Why?
Puck and Oberon versus Friar Laurence and the Nurse
In A Midsummer Night's Dream Puck and Oberon watch over the young lovers (and Bottom) and save them from coming to any harm. Explain how they are able to do this, through their magical powers. In Romeo and Juliet the Friar and the Nurse try to help the tragic lovers but fail to save them. Compare their efforts to help Romeo and Juliet with the efforts of Puck and Oberon. How and why are the fairies successful where human helpers fail? Compare the Friar's use of magical or seeming magical herbs with Oberon's use of magical plants (Cupid's flower and Dian's bud).
"'Tis almost fairy time"
In both plays characters refer to fairies. Romeo and Juliet's longest speech (spoken by Mercutio) is a description of Queen Mab, the "fairies' midwife", but he admits to making it up. In A Midsummer Night's Dream Theseus refers jokingly to “fairy time”, but may well not believe in fairies any more than Romeo and Mercutio. What difference do the fairies make to the comic world of A Midsummer Night's Dream compared to the harsher view of the world that we see in Romeo and Juliet?
Verona and Athens
In both plays, the place where the action occurs is important. Comment on the various settings within each play, and explain what it has to do with what happens. (In A Midsummer Night's Dream look at Athens and the Palace Wood outside the city; in Romeo and Juliet look at the city square in Verona, Capulet's house and garden, the Friar's cell, Mantua, and the Capulet tomb.)
Tragedy and comedy
Try to explain what these terms mean, as descriptions of types of play, when we apply them to A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet. Try to refer to their structure, theme and mood.
Fathers and daughters
In both plays we find heroines (Juliet and Hermia) who are subject to the authority of their fathers. In one play we see a father begin by giving his daughter a lot of freedom, and end by removing it from her; in the other, we see a father try to control his daughter's life for most of the play, but who is reconciled to her near its end. Comment on these relationships, as you see them in the two plays. (Pyramus and Thisbe also supposedly have tyrannical parents).
Contrast
Both plays exploit obvious contrasts for theatrical effect. Among these are light and dark (or day and night), love and hate and the upper and lower ends of the social scale. Explain how any of these work to make the drama more effective.
Order and disorder
This is a contrast of theme you will find in almost any of Shakespeare's plays. In both A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet we see rulers (Theseus/Oberon and Prince Escalus) try to restore or maintain order, in the face of disruptive or anarchic behaviour. Show how this appears in each play, and how important it is to the play's central themes. In each play there are figures who represent disorder (Bottom and Puck; Mercutio and Tybalt). Explain how these challenge the rulers' attempts to preserve order in their domains (territory).
Pyramus and Thisbe
In A Midsummer Night's DreamThe workmen's Lamentable Comedy can be seen as a parody (silly copy) of Romeo and Juliet. There are obvious similarities in the plot (can you say what these are?) but not in the theatrical qualities of the two pieces. In Pyramus and Thisbe we see how not to do things which are done much better elsewhere in A Midsummer Night's Dream,in Romeo and Juliet or in other plays by Shakespeare. (These include depicting wild animals, a wall, moonlight and killing on stage). Comment on how these things are done both in Pyramus and Thisbe and in the plays proper. Comment on how hard or easy it is for actors to speak the dialogue in Shakespeare's plays generally, and to speak the verse we meet in Pyramus and Thisbe (look at the end of the Prologue, and the dying speeches of the two lovers). Explain how the workmen's play is a good commentary on young lovers who take themselves too seriously.
The plays in performance
Comment on how the plays were presented in the versions you have seen. Was it a cinema, TV or stage performance? Comment on such things as costume, props and action; you may also refer to lighting, music, SFX, and anything else which caught your interest. If you were to direct (in a given medium - stage, TV, cinema) how would you approach these things?
Conclusion
Explain what you like about either play or both. Say how well they work in performance, and what kind of response they provoke in the audience.
Remember to present your work attractively, with illustrations (for eaxmple, to show costume or props) and any diagrams (ideas for staging) to clarify your ideas.
III. Conclusion
1.3 Studying Romeo and Juliet - criteria for assessment
The headings below show how details of the play relate to the broad headings for assessment of work on Shakespeare.
1 Nature of play/implications/moral or philosophical significance
This refers to the ideas or themes in the play - what it is about but not its story. In Romeo and Juliet this means at least the following:
Love - the difference between Romeo's pretended love (affectation) for Rosaline and real love.
Fortune: "a greater power than we can contradict" - how we are not always or fully in control of our own lives
Authority - of parents · of the law; · of the Prince.
Tragedy - what does this mean? Does the play show general or universal truths about tragic love?The causes of tragedy.
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