After Juliet

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The two lovers are dead and the Prince has forced peace upon the two households, the Capulets and the Montagues, but as everyone knows too well an enforced truce is barely a truce at all.

Kate Duffy does remarkably well playing Rosaline and captures the confused and often helpless emotions that are pulling her hither and thither.As it turns out, Rosaline and Benvolio’s relationship (which is mostly one-sided) is such a small part of this short but fascinating work. This is more of an exploration of Rosaline’s thoughts following the tragedy and, even more broadly, the thoughts of Verona as a whole. Most of the scenes consist of the characters discussing the events of Shakespeare’s play and trying to make sense of them—who should be blamed for all of the recent deaths? Should the two families remain at peace, or is that a fruitless endeavor? Did Romeo and Juliet even really love each other? Just before dawn, Romeo prepares to lower himself from Juliet’s window to begin his exile. Juliet tries to convince Romeo that the birdcalls they hear are from the nightingale, a night bird, rather than from the lark, a morning bird. Romeo cannot entertain her claims; he must leave before the morning comes or be put to death. Juliet declares that the light outside comes not from the sun, but from some meteor. Overcome by love, Romeo responds that he will stay with Juliet, and that he does not care whether the Prince’s men kill him. Faced with this turnaround, Juliet declares that the bird they heard was the lark; that it is dawn and he must flee. I find myself in somewhat of a quandary penning this review, since I was not -and still am not -quite sure of what I was watching. Was it a play, a Masque, a fantasia, a choreographic display or an intellectual ego trip? In the cold light of afterwards, I am inclined to think it was all of these, but the balance was heavily weighted in favour of the last two. Shakespeare situates this maturation directly after Juliet’s wedding night, linking the idea of development from childhood to adulthood with sexual experience. Indeed, Juliet feels so strong that she defies her father, but in that action she learns the limit of her power. Strong as she might be, Juliet is still a woman in a male-dominated world. One might think that Juliet should just take her father up on his offer to disown her and go to live with Romeo in Mantua. That is not an option. Juliet, as a woman, cannot leave society; and her father has the right to make her do as he wishes. Though defeated by her father, Juliet does not revert to being a little girl. She recognizes the limits of her power and, if another way cannot be found, determines to use it: for a woman in Verona who cannot control the direction of her life, suicide, the brute ability to live or not live that life, can represent the only means of asserting authority over the self. Beyond this, the production aspects were variable in effect. Some props – Valentine’s umbrella for example – were well used and added to the piece, but bringing several longswords onto the Corpus stage and actually trying to fight with them was not a wise decision. Lighting and sound were similarly hit and miss. The rain effect was good, until it lasted a few more scenes than necessary (or than made sense, once the action had moved inside), and the crypt sound effect would have added well to the atmosphere, had the silence between loops not broken it. The crypt lighting was more successful, and other changes were effective, but the lighting in other scenes was unnecessary.

Macdonald's daughter Keira Knightley appeared in the Heatham House Youth Centre's NT Connections production, which made the regional finals. [4] Presenter: Oh dear. What a pity! Shameful scenes of descent at the end there. And that is a sure fire way of getting yourself recast. Juliet is decisive when she fakes her own death so she can be with Romeo. She listens to Friar Laurence's plan and decides to fulfil it.

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Playwright and novelist Sharman Macdonald was born in Glasgow in 1951. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, she graduated in 1972 and moved to London where she acted with the 7:84 theatre company and at the Royal Court Theatre. While she was working as an actress, she wrote her first play, When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout (1985), first performed at the Bush Theatre in 1984. The play won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. Baz Luhrman’s film of Romeo and Juliet with Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio prompted Sharman Macdonald’s 13-year-old daughter Keira Knightley to tell her to write play about Rosaline. Undoubtedly Rosaline appears on stage in Romeo and Juliet and at the Capulet’s party but she is not in the cast list and, although Romeo is besotted with her in Act I Scene 1, she is only mentioned twice. The daughter's demand together with the film's electrifying music and the tough sinewy style that made the Shakespearean language a dialect that young people could use, led Sharman Macdonald to speculate on how she could explore what happened in the days immediately after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet gives glimpses of her determination, strength, and sober-mindedness, in her earliest scenes, and offers a preview of the woman she will become during the four-day span of Romeo and Juliet. While Lady Capulet proves unable to quiet the Nurse, Juliet succeeds with one word (also in Act 1, scene 3). In addition, even in Juliet’s dutiful acquiescence to try to love Paris, there is some seed of steely determination. Juliet promises to consider Paris as a possible husband to the precise degree her mother desires. While an outward show of obedience, such a statement can also be read as a refusal through passivity. Juliet will accede to her mother’s wishes, but she will not go out of her way to fall in love with Paris.