STUDY GUIDE

THEMES

William Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet
Phillip Breen

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THEMES

TIME

“Two hours’ traffic of our stage”? (Prologue).

Right from the very first speech of the chorus, time is mentioned in this play
– we are told about the "two hours’ traffic of our stage". Time is constantly
referenced, perhaps more than in any other Shakespeare play. The time of
day, the day, the age of characters, how much time is left, wishing time
away, whether people are moving too quickly or too slowly. It’s very
important for the rapid forward march of this play. Taking the play at face
value, the action starts on Saturday afternoon and ends in the early hours
of Thursday morning. In that time Romeo's been in love with two women
and married one of them, four young men and a young woman are dead,
there have been two weddings, three funerals and a masked ball, a man is
banished and returns on horseback, sentences are pronounced and
reneged on, and the houses of Capulet and Montague move from bitter
enmity to friendship and a collaboration on new gold statues. A lot happens
very quickly, and because things are happening very quickly, a lot of
agonisingly poor decisions are being made, and very few people are
reflecting soberly on their actions. The characters don't sleep, and they are
hungover during Acts 2 and 3. It’s hell for the characters, but great for the
audience. We know the action is constantly lurching forward to these
characters’ date with death.

I was the assistant director on Terry Hands’ 2003 production of Romeo and
Juliet, which in the last rehearsal room run played through rapidly, largely
uncut, at two hours, eight minutes. So the question of whether the play
would have actually been “two hours’ traffic” is moot. I know that it is at
least theoretically possible to do it. Alas, Juliet broke her foot on the first
preview, so we never did see it play at that speed in front of an audience.
But it strikes me that the line “Two hours’ traffic of our stage” is an
important note from the playwright to the actors. If this play is taken too
slowly and the characters have time to think, then so much of the drama is
less plausible. We also get less of the farcical humour.

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 In many modern productions an interval is added, which also slows up the
action (films frequently run at two hours plus, but no interval is required).
The interval is often taken after the death of Mercutio, which seems as
good a place as any. But by doing that you miss the conjunction of Juliet
running on stage blood-stained by the deaths of Tybalt and Mercutio to
give her speech about blood being in her cheeks and her sexual feelings
about Romeo. At that point it’s the combination of the death of the two
boys and Juliet’s somewhat shocking speech (she’s 13 remember) literally
made in the blood of her cousin that shifts the play into a darker dramatic
gear. There is no let-up. These kids are out of control.

QUESTIONS:

• How many references to time can you spot in Romeo and Juliet?
• What happens to the play if there's no clock on it?
• Try reading the scene where Mercutio is killed aloud in different
tempos. What is the impact on the drama when it is read quickly
and what is the impact when it is read slowly?

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 MASKS

A masked ball is a party in which everyone turns up wearing a mask to

cover their face. The masque has been a famously Italian tradition since
the 15th century. They are very exciting and sexy because people can
pretend to be someone else. No one knows who is who and people say
things that they wouldn't normally say if they were unmasked. It's sexy and
a little dangerous. But everyone knows that when the masks come off
everything goes back to normal. No grudges are held; amorous advances
are forgotten. It's a bit like an internet chatroom, no one really knows who
anyone is, or what anyone looks like, they might be gorgeous, they might
be hideous. It might be real attraction, it might be false. In a way being
drunk is a “mask”. When everyone's drunk they can pretend it's “just the
drink talking”, but we also know that in vino veritas or, to translate loosely,
"in booze is truth". While on the surface, the masked ball is about a highly
gilded lie, actually, underneath it’s a way for some truths to come out in a
relatively safe context. But it’s never straightforward.

Masked balls and parties are a staple of drama, it provides so much

exciting dramatic potential. Mistaken identity, the revelation of love and
desire, the thrill of potential discovery. Verdi's famous opera, Un Ballo en
Maschera (or A Masked Ball), captures the sexiness and danger by telling
the story of an assassination at one such event. They're dramatically
exciting because the characters are more open, more emotional. So many
plays and films have a party or celebration which becomes the catalyst for
the drama.

It's also visually stunning for an audience. The masks can be allegorical,
too, they can tell a story – the mask a character chooses can say so much
about them. It was traditional in high Italian society for the royalty to wear
masks that told of their families’ dynastic history.

QUESTIONS:

• If you were designing a modern-day production of Romeo and Juliet

what masks might you give each of the characters?
• Are Romeo and Juliet masked when they first see each other?
• Can you think of any other films, plays or books in which a mask'd
ball or equivalent is the catalyst for the drama?

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BLACK AND WHITE

A lot of the erotic and sensual imagery in Romeo and Juliet is presented in
black and white. Benvolio says that he will take Romeo to the Capulet ball
and “prove his swan [Rosaline] a crow”. Romeo, in expressing Juliet's
beauty for the first time, compares her to a “jewel in an Ethiop's ear”.
Juliet's “gallop apace you fiery footed steeds” speech is shot through with
images of shadows and "new snow on a raven's back" and stars against
the night sky. This gives an overall poetic impression of youthful eroticism:
clear, sharply defined and distinct. Perhaps more mature lovers might see
things in subtler shades. It’s interesting to think of the number of famous
erotic photographs taken in black and white. Helmut Newton, one of the
20th century’s most famous photographers, worked a lot in black and
white. So many of the sensual magazine adverts for perfume and
underwear are shot in black and white – Calvin Klein and Jean-Paul
Gaultier are prolific in this regard. In Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999), a film
with conspicuous amounts of naked flesh, the most erotic episode in the
film, when Nicole Kidman's character tells Tom Cruise's character that she
considered infidelity with a sailor, the film suddenly jumps from colour to
black and white. The depiction of the rather sanitised orgies later in the film
are shot in colour; I would argue deliberately. The reality isn't supposed to
be as sexy as the fantasy. Perhaps one could say that when the young
couple are anticipating one another they do it in dreamy, sensual black and
white, but when they encounter each other in reality, the colours are filled
in and the whole thing becomes real.

QUESTIONS:

• In the early part of Romeo and Juliet there are many references to
black and white. How many can you find?
• Look at some black and white photographs by Helmut Newton, or
some Calvin Klein adverts. Imagine those same photographs in
colour.
• “Romeo and Juliet begins in safe black and white and ends up in
terrifying colour”. Discuss.
• What does it mean when someone says that a person's view on
something is quite “black and white”?

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our full-length production, visit digitaltheatreplus.com