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PART I.
The appealing characters, balance of comedy and heart-wrenching tragedy, and fast-paced plot of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet have made it an especially popular choice for high school and college theatres, and earned it a place on the shelf of most high school classrooms. Its appeal for younger audiences and students is easy to understand. Themes of generational strife, coming-of-age, first love, and hope for love despite tragedy have resonated deeply with countless audiences, and the play's malleable plot and setting make it easy to interpret through contemporary lenses. Adolescence and tragedy entwine in Romeo and Juliet. The young characters face many mature challenges and feelings for the first time over the course of the text, from the sparks of love and sexual awakening to the sudden, incomprehensible pits of grief they are each plunged into when they are faced with first encounters with mortality. This bittersweet coming-of-age narrative is bound up inextricably with the larger context of the community of Verona and the effects the tragedy has on the city at large. For all its deepest despair and moments of unexpected brevity, Romeo and Juliet is a play which fundamentally explores the effects of tragedy and trauma on both the individual and the community.
The characters in Romeo and Juliet are young. While Juliet is the only character with a given age in-text, Romeo, Mercutio, Tybalt, Benvolio, and even Paris are all addressed as boys or youths throughout the script. Of the five of them, only Count Paris seems to have a real position and independence from his family (1.3.80-96). The others are all apparently unmarried and unoccupied, with Romeo shown to still depend on his parents for a roof over his head and financial support (1.1.130-140). Adolescence and young adulthood in Shakespeare's time came with a very different set of expectations than it does for teenagers today, but was nevertheless considered a turbulent transitional period (Sparey, 1-10). Each of the central younger characters face new experiences and conflicts during the play which speak to the transitive nature of their ages. Tybalt, Mercutio, Benvolio, and Romeo all seem to search for their footing and place in Verona society and the roles they fit into due to the feud. Tybalt struggles with his uncle's authority and his own sense of family duty and honor (1.4.174-205). The center of Mercutio's happiness and world is his close friendships with Romeo and Benvolio, which is unsettled when Romeo appears changed after meeting Juliet (2.3.82-85). Despite his bravado and careless liveliness, he appears furious and terrified when faced with his own mortality at an age and moment Benvolio deems "Too untimely," (3.1.96-107,118). Romeo and Juliet, likewise, face new challenges and events which change their views on life throughout the play.
Between his assumed age and position as the son of a rich family, Romeo has hitherto had the freedom to avoid the prospect of involving himself in the feud, even dismissing it at the start of the play with "Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all," When Benvolio confronts him after the first scene's fight (1.1.170). He has not yet needed to seriously consider an advantageous marriage, career and position, or other obligations, and despite the anxiety of the feud weighing on him he has few true worries in the world (1.1.114-234). Juliet, meanwhile, is immediately told to "Think of marriage now," when she is introduced (1.3.71), despite her statement that it is "An honor that [Juliet] dream[s] not of." Much like Romeo dismisses the feud in favor of mourning his one-sided infatuation with Rosaline, Juliet waves off the conversation with an agreement that she will "Look to like, if looking liking move," when Paris presents himself. The feud, Paris' courting, and the fragility of the situation only become real for them once their chance meeting and attraction shatters the illusion of safety each has hitherto inhabited. Juliet's oft-quoted "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet," may be a sweeping, romantic statement, but it is also a very practical musing on the impossibility of their situation (2.1.76-79) Romeo and Juliet's choice together to elope despite their families' enmity marks a first excited step towards adulthood and independence for each of them (2.1.185-200). While their commitment is quick and impulsive, the weight of it and commitment each expresses is far deeper. Hitherto unreliable, irresponsible Romeo makes wedding arrangements and tells Friar Lawrence that "Love-devouring Death do what he dare, it is enough I may but call her mine." (2.5.7-8). Hitherto seemingly obedient Juliet suggests marriage before Romeo does, and later awaits her wedding night with startling bluntness, excited for the "Winning match, played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods," in store as she and Romeo explore sexuality and their new roles in marriage and adulthood together (2.1.185, 3.2.1-31).
Tragedy follows quickly on the heels of this new maturity. Both the emotional and practical consequences of the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt in the first scene of Act III are devastating for Juliet and Romeo. Besides facing sudden deaths of people close to them, each is almost immediately placed in a position of almost insurmountable difficulty and entrapment which seems to completely obliterate any future they might have together, or even any future at all. Romeo's exile cuts him off from his family, remaining friends, religious supports, and any other familiarity or safety. He laments that "There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, Hell itself," and it is no surprise that he feels so, given everything he knows is within Verona walls (3.3.17-18). Juliet is given an ultimatum by her parents to marry Paris against her will or her father will eject her from the house and "Ne'er acknowledge [her]," (3.5.159-195). Each considers their connection to each other to be their final lifeline and point of stability. Within the accelerated timeline of the play, Romeo and Juliet are both forced to grow from young, carefree individuals facing the unknowns of growing up into shocked, isolated, grieving young adults within days. Juliet confronts death head-on before Romeo does via her choice to undertake the friar's dangerous plan to fake her death in order to facilitate her escape with Romeo. Juliet's "Farewell; -God knows when we shall meet again," as she rejects her Nurse's assertion that she should assent to marry Paris despite her marriage to Romeo marks the cutting of her last tie to support and authority (3.5.212-227,4.3.13). Her choice to fake her death, and later to die, is an act of agency from a point of complete self-possession and adult independence. Romeo feels "World-wearied," despite his young age, and despite his terror of death chooses to seal his "Dateless bargain to engrossing Death," as a last act of loyalty and control (5.3.110-120). While the dramatically fast-paced timeline of the play may require some suspension of disbelief, the fact that two teenagers faced with exile, forced marriage, loss of support and family, sudden grief, and separation from their last perceived hope of comfort ultimately concluding that they cannot bear the 'thousand natural shocks' any longer does not.
This complicated effect of tragedy and violence is observable in all of the characters, not only Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio, Paris, and Tybalt are caught up in the same whirlwind of young adult choices, changes, and danger, all ultimately falling into the violent roles Verona's society and the prominence of the feud pushes them into. Of the younger characters, only Benvolio apparently survives the play (though he dies in the first Quarto text), but vanishes as if consumed after his report of the events of the duel to the Prince (3.1.175, Q1 5.3.141). Romeo's mother, too, is caught up in the periphery of the tragedy and does not survive the physical toll of her grief (5.3.210). As the Prince declares when Romeo and Juliet's bodies are found, "All are punished," himself even losing "A brace of kinsmen," (Paris and Mercutio)(5.3.291-295). All three of the major actors in the feud are bereaved. The effects of the tragedy on the community is palpable. From the moment Mercutio curses both houses with his dying breath, the steady worsening of the situation and the heavy atmosphere of the remainder of the script correspond with the town's unsettled emotional state. No-one knows how to respond, no-one has solutions, and no-one can help responding impulsively, fearfully, and vengefully until the situation spirals even farther.
Collective grief is a strong theme of Romeo and Juliet, as in the end it is the only force strong enough to subdue the spiteful blow-for-blow attitude of the Capulet and Montague houses (5.3.296-310). It is established from the prologue onward that Verona is a town on the edge of exploding with the tension of the feud. Its inhabitants are overall very isolated within their own loyalties and groups. Connection outside of those groups is clouded by suspicion and prejudice. Tensions only rise with the tragedy of Tybalt and Mercutio's deaths. Grief and the looming presence of death from 3.1 onward isolates the characters even further; it follows Romeo into exile away from his family and friends, renders the Nurse and Friar Lawrence ultimately too afraid to stand behind Juliet, erases Benvolio and Lady Montague from the play, and motivates Lady Capulet to plot an assassination by poison for Romeo in exile. As the prologue establishes, the prejudice between the two houses cannot be subdued by anything less than the deaths of their own children (P.1-5). These final deaths distribute the grief and blame unambiguously across the shoulders of everyone involved, from the parents to the servants to the townspeople mindlessly engaged in the feud. Bearing of grief as a community can do little to assuage the horror of Romeo and Juliet's deaths, but it is the weight which finally subdues the fighting and allows for at least a moment of tentative peace to settle on Verona.
Romeo and Juliet is a play which contains strong divides between generations and depicts the strife of growing up, confronting social and familial expectations, and the isolating effects these experiences can have on young people. The tragic elements and trauma the characters experience becomes a unifying force for their community, not necessarily one of peaceful catharsis or resolution so much as one of evenly divided guilt, grief, and pain. Each character, regardless of generation, is left frayed and isolated by the end of the play in some way. The young characters, who are forced to mature and face mortality in a sudden context, experience the entirety of adolescence and come of age within the text of the play, each in a unique way. These experiences of grief, mortality, love, sex, and family strife are ones which many modern young people grapple with today, and feed Romeo and Juliet's enduring popularity.
PART II.
This hypothetical play based on Romeo and Juliet will give focus primarily to these effects of tragedy and trauma on the individual and community through a narrative device wherein the play's scenes are split between two scripts, one composed of snapshots of Shakespeare, and the other an adaptation in modern English with a contemporary setting. The Shakespeare scenes move from the play's ending backwards towards the beginning, while the modern scenes move from the beginning towards the end. This production would play very fluidly with the basics of Shakespeare's plots and characters, but adapt some elements directly in order to create a timeless effect for the modern scenes. The modern adapted plot is the main focus of the production, with the Shakespearean scenes used to foreshadow, create bittersweet tragic parallels, and to highlight certain emotions and themes.
The scenes staged with Shakespeare's script will be costumed and performed in a classic style which is in line with the usual styling of productions of Romeo and Juliet, with Renaissance-inspired costumes and sets, and typical blocking and movement choices for scenes which do not overlap with the main modern scenes. The modern-set scenes will be costumed and designed in a contemporary style, with more naturalistic acting and sets. The two opposing plots will converge at the end of the first act, with the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt in the duel scene. In the second act, the Shakespeare scenes may mingle, clash, or be reorganized to create a dreamlike parallel to the modern plot as it hurtles towards tragedy. This adaptation is a very complicated reworking of the text with a lot of moving parts. This is partially intentional; since Shakespeare's play is already so well-known, scrambling the plot, changing the setting, and highlighting new characters is easier to introduce to audiences with the expected baseline of knowledge they have likely absorbed about the play before entering the theater. As discussed by Alexandra Petri on Shakespeare Unlimited, choosing what to keep, what to highlight, and what to change when adapting Shakespeare is influenced by several factors, from the purpose of the adaptation to the assumed familiarity of the audience (Petri). This production assumes a degree of familiarity with Shakespeare's text, but ideally would balance in way that would not be alienating for a hypothetically uninformed audience, either. The modern script's grounded approach to the story and strong contrast between acting and visual styles between the two sections would ideally make the story's telling more simplified and linear despite the apparent complication.
The modern section would have its own distinct script, which would be adapted from Shakespeare's. This would build a version of the story which focuses a lot on the young characters, their feelings, their experiences, and their responses to the danger and difficulty of their situation. For the purpose of the themes addressed here, the modern script is conceptualized as a relatively near transposition of the events and plot points of Shakespeare's play. Modern young people still face danger, prejudice, abuse, suicide, and grief; leaving those themes in the past when adapting Romeo and Juliet changes the nature of the story too much for this context. Given the popular modern interpretation of Romeo and Juliet as a play which condemns the prejudices and violence of the older generation, dual timelines in this production would allow for (MacKay). The setting for this section is a modern American small town, with its petty jealousies, family enmity, prejudice, isolation, and insularity. Since the primary focus of the production is on the story's relevance to experiences with tragedy and young adulthood, the violence, deaths, and ending all remain, even if plot details change.
The characters will be primarily juniors or seniors in high school in this version; barely on the edge of adulthood, a precarious time for new experiences, life-altering choices, and preparing for a future which is totally unknown. The teenage characters grapple with typical questions faced by young people as they approach the transition to adulthood. Some characters debate whether to leave their small town in favor of a new life elsewhere. Others make plans to go to school, choose a trade, or stay with a family business. All of them struggle with relationships, identity, and family pressures. The pressure Juliet is placed under to consider marrying Paris is left mostly intact in this modern script, as pressure to marry quickly after graduation is an experience many young women growing up in conservative or isolated communities have to navigate as they consider their futures to this day. Placing the plot of Romeo and Juliet in a community like this allows the characters to be reworked and remade in ways which feel like natural transpositions of their Shakespeare counterparts, but still give voice to the contemporary themes of the play.
The purpose the Shakespeare scenes serve in the thematic focus of this production has several intended layers. Firstly, it would create contrast between the mythologized idea of Romeo and Juliet as a picturesque, melodramatic love story and the more raw, heavy, realistic trauma depicted in the modern sequences. It would also be an interesting way to play with the audience's expectations of the play; everyone knows Romeo and Juliet, how it ends, and the usual ways in which the plot is interpreted. Scattering that expectation by reversing the scenes they expect to see and reworking them in the contemporary context of the main script would add a new dimension to the experience of the show. It could also provide interesting fluidity between scenes and for transitions between scenes. In terms of acting style, these scenes would be more stylized and heavily choreographed than the modern sections, and might contain more dance elements. Some characters portrayed in the Shakespeare sections may appear as mirrors or contrasts for the fates or choices of their modern counterparts. The scenes from Shakespeare becoming more disjointed through the play enables the story to be told through itself, but in a different perspective and tone.
The closeness of community and the tragedy which binds them together in Romeo and Juliet is one of the most compelling elements of the play. The simplicity of Romeo and Juliet's traditional story allow it to be reworked to tell a wealth of different stories, and to illustrate a variety of points. If Shakespearean adaptation is an "ongoing and complex negotiation between the audience and the actors," this production's offering to the audience is not necessarily a perfect tragic love story, or a gritty modern retelling, but rather a chance to identify their own experiences and struggles in a production which is stylized and dynamic in a way which is both engaging and offers a degree of levity to its audience through its dual timelines and interconnected plot (Martinson). This theoretical adaptation aims to emphasize the heaviness of the plot and grief, but also find hope and peace in some of the classic elements of Shakespeare, comedic scenes, and transcendent joy experienced by Romeo and Juliet in love. .