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classic repertory company STUDY GUIDE William Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET Education Outreach Supporters Funded in part by generous individual contributors, the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Foundation for MetroWest, Esther B. Kahn Foundation, Fuller Foundation, The Marshall Home Fund, Roy A. Hunt Foundation, and Watertown Community Foundation. This program is also supported in part by grants from the Brookline Commission for the Arts, Cambridge Arts Council, Greenfield Cultural Council, Marlborough Cultural Council, Plymouth Cultural Council, and Watertown Cultural Council, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. Classic Repertory Company is produced in cooperation with Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre NEW REP administratiVE OFFICE 200 DEXTER AVENUE WATERTOWN, MA 02472 the professional theatre company in residence at the artistic director jim petosa managing director harriet sheets arsenal center for the arts A Timeline of Shakespeare’s Life 1564 Born in Stratford-upon-Avon 1582 Marries Anne Hathaway 1585 Moves to London to pursue theatre career 1592 London closes theatres due to plague 1593 Starts to write sonnets 1594 Publishes first works of poetry 1594 Starts managing, as well as writing for, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men 1596 Romeo and Juliet first performed .1600 .1600 C 1599 Lord Chamberlain’s Men begin performing at YLOR the newly built Globe Theater A T ONDON L N 1600 Writes Hamlet, one of his most well-known plays H 1603 The Lord Chamberlain’s Men is renamed the King’s Men in honor of the new King James’ patronage 1604 Retires from acting JO PORTRAIT, S 1613 The Globe Theatre burns down ANDO 1614 The Globe Theatre is rebuilt H E C ATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, PORTRAIT GALLERY, ATIONAL 1616 Dies and is buried at Holy Trinity Church TH N in Stratford-Upon-Avon adapted from http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/timeline.htm Why do we read Shakespeare? Shakespeare’s works are over 400 years old. Since his time, so many other books and plays have been written that we may ask why we still care to read and perform his works. There are many ways we can answer this question, depending on where we look. First, let’s consider what these plays are about. People often refer to Shakespeare’s work as timeless and universal because the issues and themes prevalent in his works apply to humans of all ages and backgrounds; themes of love, self-discovery, relationships, and political strife are relevant in any society, whether in 1600, 1850, or 2016. Through watching or reading Shakespeare, we can easily draw parallels to contemporary and historical issues. Shakespeare’s plays are also very much driven by human psychology. His characters are so well developed that we do not merely view the wide range of human emotions and the changes that each character experiences, but we also identify with these characters and their personal struggles throughout each play. Aside from the artistic importance of his works, Shakespeare also made many contributions to the English language. He coined thousands of new words and phrases that we still use today. For instance, the common phrase “all’s well that ends well” actually comes from the title of one of Shakespeare’s comedies! One might even say that Shakespeare’s plays were part of the birth of modern English due to his creative wordplay, clever imagery, and evocative, if sometimes crude, Romeo and Juliet Study Guide 2 analogies. So, why do we still choose to read and watch Shakespeare today? We can learn so much about his culture period, as well time and the issues that are still relevant today. We can enhance our vocabulary greatly by studying his use of and contributions to the English language. In watching or reading Shakespeare’s plays, challenge yourself to try and find something that applies to you and your life. It could be a character, a specific line, one of the main themes, or even a relationship. Everyone can connect to and identify with these plays in some capacity, so find the reason or multiple reasons his plays apply to you. ■ CHARLOTTE AND SUSAN CUSHMAN AS ROMEO AND JULIET, 1846. HARVARD THEATRE COLLECTION. Romeo and Juliet Performance History “Of all Shakespeare’s plays, this is perhaps the one that is performed, if not the oftenest, with most pleasure to the spectator.” So begins Hazlitt’s 1819 edition of Shakespeare’s “most excellent tragedie,” Romeo and Juliet. This play, above all others, has proved most popular with audiences through the ages. The Bodleian First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays held in the Oxford Library during the 1600s was sold in 1664, but reclaimed in 1905; when historians examined it, they noted that the pages of Romeo and Juliet were by far the most worn. It has long held a special place in audience’s hearts. Romeo and Juliet was first performed sometime close to 1596, when Shakespeare was with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. While records of the period do not list the players according to parts, we can reliably assume that the famed Richard Burbage played the titular Romeo, with the fourteen-year- old Robert Goff as the first Juliet. It wasn’t until William Davenant produced the play in 1662 that Mary Saunderson took the stage as the first female Juliet. The early 1700s left the script heavily censored by those who felt its innuendo was immoral. David Garrick, who was famous for publishing censored editions of Shakespeare’s major plays, produced his edition of the text, with several large changes, the most notable of which is that the final scene Romeo and Juliet Study Guide 3 between Romeo and Juliet shows Romeo still alive when Juliet wakes up, allowing them a final farewell before Romeo succumbs to the poison. This edition was performed in 1730 by an amateur company in the United States, the first American production of Romeo and Juliet. In 1845, Charlotte Cushman became the first female Romeo, performing the play with her sister Susan as Juliet on a world tour to unanimous critical acclaim. Most importantly, Charlotte made the brave decision to restore the original text, including the long-cut innuendo that the public often felt was too crude and brash for the stage. In 1935, the renowned Sirs Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud performed the play at the New Theatre in London, to critical acclaim. Olivier and Gielgud, interestingly, swapped roles every night LAURENCE OLIVIER AND PEGGY ASHCROFT IN THE JOHN GIELGUD NEW THEATRE PRODUCTION, 1935 between who would play Romeo and who would play Mercutio. Franco Zeffirelli, anI talian director, was hired by The Old Vic in London to direct the play in 1960 for what became a two year run. The play starred Dame Judi Dench and was notably shortened, with 1,000 lines, or one-third of the play, cut. Although Shakespeare purists were outraged at the omission of the Bard’s language, many critics loved the deftness of Zeffirelli’s storytelling. When the time came for Paramount Pictures to create a film version ofRomeo and Juliet they looked no further than Zeffirelli, who used cuts similar to his stage version.T he film was an instant success, and nearly universally loved by critics. No other film version would be made for another 28 years, until Baz Luhrmann directed Romeo + Juliet, a “punk rock opera bursting with vitality, violence, noise, and camp humor” in 1996. It, like its predecessor, was a smash hit. Source: Shakespeare, William, and René Weis. Romeo and Juliet. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. Print.. Romeo and Juliet Study Guide 4 Shakespeare’s Sources The story behind Romeo and Juliet, drawn from a feud between two Italian families, far predated Shakespeare’s play. In 1298 Dante Alighieri wrote a letter to the Holy Roman Emperor Albert I warning him of the danger between two Italian families, the Montecchi and Capelletti. Luigi da Porto, an Italian writer, popularized the story with his novel Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili PORTRAIT OF MATTEO BANDELLO amanti (c. 1530). The story then fascinated writers and readers alike, being re-told by many writers, notably Matteo Bandello, an Italian writer who compiled a series of stories into a volume called Novelle in 1554. Shakespeare frequently turned to the stories that Bandello had recorded, most notably using him as a source for his plays Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night. Shakespeare read these stories as translated by Willam Paynter in his Palace of Pleasure in 1567. Still, no source is more important for Romeo and Juliet than Arthur Brooke’s The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, written in 1562 and reprinted in 1582 due to high demand. The poem was 3,020 lines long, almost exactly as long as the play it inspired. Many scholars insist that Shakesepare had the text at his desk as he was writing, noting the fact that Shakespeare frequently borrows some of his most famous imagery from Brooke’s poem, including the famous FRONTISPIECE OF BROOKE’S “holy palmers” exchange between Romeo and Juliet. TRAGICALL HISTORYE OF ROMEUS AND JULIET. Despite the numerous similarities between Brooke’s and Shakespeare’s versions of the story, it is Shakespeare’s changes that are most interesting. Some are very simple, and most likely practical. Shakespeare retains the English version of Juliet’s name – her Italian name is Giulietta – but uses Romeo’s Italian name rather than the English Romeus as used by Brooke. These simple changes can be easily ascribed to the fact that Romeo and Juliet are far easier to rhyme with than their unwieldy counterparts.

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