It is with some trepedation that I anticipate the Utah Shakespeare Festival's return in 2013. For their fifth visit since moving to Vegas, they will do the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, which is a very wonderful play that is frequently poorly done. Many of my younger acquaintences dramaticize it as a sign of how they expect their love lives to proceed, but very few recognize the truths about the play, particularly that it's a tragedy.
Romeo and Juliet is not about contemporary love. It does not deal with contemporary lovers. It is about the love of youth- the first flame- and about the love of family, or familial piety. What it actually shows is what happens when people do things in the name of love that are nothing like love at all.
Consider the ages of the players. Romeo is around 16 years old (nobody seems to be exactly sure) and Juliet is 13. She is hardly the voluptuous sophisticate as she is depicted in so many theatrical and cinematographic recreations. They are foolish youths who are feeling the first stirrings of what lead to 'family'. Like the youth of today, they are rebelling; unlike the youth of today, they are thoughtful and do not do stupid things like post all their relationship nuances onto Facebook.
The play is, quite frankly, a poem. It is a play on words. In order to sell tickets, get teenagers involved, etc., producers have introduced many things to make the play salacious, sensuous and sensational. It is nothing of the sort. There is no balcony, no kiss, and no making out. Most of the love scenes are poetic exchanges between the players, and they are beautiful expressions of love as the players understand it.
While Romeo watches, Juliet opines the fact that her family is at odds with Romeo's. This is an important point. I have never actually dated a girl whose parents liked me; unlike Juliet, none of them have decided to defy their parents, and none of them have run off with me like Lysander and Hermia to the peril of disproval or death. The same thing comes up when people opine matters of name, wealth, religion, social status, etc., because people are people, and we usually connect with people who share our values in their hearts, no matter what their values might be on paper. This is how proud Texans could fight alongside Carolina farmboys and the Virginia gentry- they shared a value, but I digress. Juliet realizes that she likes Romeo for who he is, irrespective of the titles he might or might not carry, to include his family name. This makes her an interesting love interest, because she does not love as a teenager and demand that he be tall or blonde or know what an adirondack chair is in order to be worthy of her favor.
Romeo is before all else a gentleman, and his first overture is to offer an exchange of vows. Following that, they do not make out, jump into bed together, or any of that other nonsense producers add to make it look like the bastardized form of love with which most folks are familiar. A girl from such a noble family would have allowed no physical contact with a man outside of wedlock. Her reply is a model of propriety and worth learning by heart:
"If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;
And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world. "
If you really love me, marry me first, perform the rite, and then I will be your partner for all time. Oh, for the love that is really seen in this play!
Then and only then do the players make love. Then and only then do they kill themselves to be together. Then and only then do the parents learn that real love means letting people make mistakes and grow as a consequence.
Romeo and Juliet are a tragic example of what happens when we let other people tell us what to do. Its example of love is powerful. The star-crossed lovers make the best choices people of that age might be expected to make, far better than most around us who will sell their virtue cheaply. Their parents, ostensibly out of love, do not treat their children as agents, and by consequence leave them little else in order to be true to their vows. That piety to God is an interesting lesson also. Too frequently, people who love us want us to love them first, even though they also know the first commandment is to love God with everything. I have to credit Romeo and Juliet for that.
As for the productions, this could be such a great story. I hope the USF does it justice and focuses on something else as they make a story about love.
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