Shakespeare’s Characters' Impact on a Young Modern Audience

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Shakespeare’s Characters' Impact on a Young Modern Audience

Shakespeare’s characters in Romeo and Juliet are multi-dimensional

(true to life). This makes them more engaging to the audience;

Shakespeare also uses stereotypes to add to the atmosphere of comedy

and drama. Examples of multi-dimensional characters are Romeo and

Juliet themselves; an example of a stereotypical character is

Mercutio. He adds comedy and drama when he is stabbed in the fight

scene.

Shakespeare shows violence and aggression with the use of swords. I

think this is better than Baz Luhrmans interpretation where he uses

guns. This in my eyes is too far and disengages me because any fool

can use a gun. It takes at least some skill to wield a sword. The use

of swords is more masculine, which is engaging.

The gentle reading at the start of the opening scene in Romeo and

Juliet is more engaging than the news report in Baz Luhrmans because

it adds to the atmosphere of lust when the play begins. Whereas the

news report is too modern and occurs to regularly in normal everyday

life to be engaging, this also takes away some of the original charm

of the play. Original charm being the feeling the audience gets when

the prologue is read. It engages the audience because they have to

think about what is being said, and not just letting it drift into the

sub-conscious, which happens when you don’t need to think about what

is being said or done.

Romeo and Juliet are more engaging to me than West Side Story because

of the musical present in it. The music I think masks the real feeling

and message Leonard Bernstein is trying to get across. I realise that

this is an old film and it may have been engaging to my granddad, but

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