Romeo And Juliet Theatre Analysis

Attending “An Evening of Culture” at the Blue Valley Northwest Theatre was a very enjoyable experience. I was very entertained by the unique and comedic spin placed on the classic tragedy Romeo & Juliet. While watching the performance, I noticed many similarities and differences to the original play. The changes they incorporated changed the story line just enough to create a more amusing perspective.

One of the changes they made was the performance of about seven shortened scenes instead of the actual 24. This caused the play to be more of a summary rather than the entire story. After the prologue, the play jumped right into a scene where Romeo is speaking to his cousin. In the actual play of Romeo and Juliet, there is an explanation of the

back-story and more about Juliet. This change created some confusion along with the fact that the two actors playing Romeo and the cousin did not speak very clearly. This caused the audience to not hear much of the conversation except when they said “in love” a bunch of times. After this, they went straight to the party scene where Romeo sees Juliet. There is no fight between Tybalt and Romeo, but his cousin drags him out as if in danger. As the play continues, the loss of many important scenes causes confusion and humor, as no one can really understand what is being said. While watching, I had to rely more on what I knew about the story because the version performed was just very confusing.

Another difference I noticed while watching the play was when they said that the play was by Bill Shakespeare, or something similar to that, instead of William Shakespeare. I thought this was pretty funny as it sort of explained to the audience beforehand that the play about to be performed was to not be taken seriously, and that they will be putting their own humorous twist on it.
During the last scene, I found many funny differences, one of which being what happened between Romeo and his cousin. Although I do not know what happened in the actual play, I still know that what happened in the performance was not even close to accurate. As Romeo’s cousin confesses to Juliet how he feels about her, Romeo hears and starts a fight with him. They fight back and forth with their swords until they decided to fight each other with light sabers. I have a feeling that this did not happen in the real play from way back when. When Romeo finally kills his cousin, he yells in his face “I AM YOUR FATHER,” which also probably did not happen in the actual play.
Another difference in the final scene was Romeo and Juliet’s deaths.

The poison Juliet took was just to make it look like she was dead because she would wake up later, but when Romeo took the same poison he actually died. Even though Romeo was supposed to be dead in this version, the actor started to fall asleep and began snoring which caused a lot of laughter, as it did not make much sense. Juliet then woke up later finding Romeo dead, so she stabbed herself in the chest. In the actual play, Romeo gets his own poison to kill himself when he thinks Juliet is dead. I thought this was hilarious because it did not make any sense at all. In actuality, the whole final scene did not

make

sense at all.

That is why at the end of the performance no one in the audience got up because no one thought that the play had reached the end yet. The students that were helping with the play had to tell us that the performance was over and we could leave.

Probably one of the biggest differences that no one could miss was Juliet’s mother. In the performance she was African American, which I thought was pretty funny. Although this is a time of equality and all, it does not make sense for a rich family to have an African American as the mother even if it is just a play. Every time she spoke I forgot that she was Lady Capulet because she was not what I pictured. It was also very funny when she and the nurse found Juliet dead and started to cry for a few seconds then acted all normal and just left her there.

Overall I thought that the play was very entertaining and I do not regret going. It was a fun addition to my night and it helped me see Romeo and Juliet in a different light.

See that rhyming I just did, it looks like I am on my way to becoming a professional poet just like Bill

Shakespeare.