Jul 16

Love Conquers All

In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare pits the idealism of young love against hard reality of family pride. You know the story:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.

This year the Globe gives this familiar tale a refresh by setting the play in the American old west, substituting cowboys for courtiers, six-shooters for rapiers. I’m looking forward to seeing how this setting changes the play—and what it leaves untouched.

Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe

The Globe Theatre we see today is an exacting reconstruction of the building constructed by Shakespeare’s theatrical company in 1599. In a poetic coincidence, the original Globe burned down in 1613, just around the time that Shakespeare retired from the company (though it was rebuilt the following year and remained in active use until 1642, when the Puritan takeover of England led to theaters being torn down). Many of Shakespeare’s greatest plays were first produced at the Globe: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.

In reconstructing the Globe, designers aimed to recreate not just the building, but the style of theatrical performance from a bygone age. In Shakespeare’s day, theater wasn’t purely mimetic, performed behind a proscenium arch in front of illusionistic sets for a politely silent audience. It was instead interactive, performed on a stage thrust forward into the midst of a standing-room crowd whose raucous participation was part of the fun. Harvard Prof Steven Greenblatt explains more here: link. We’ll be part of that standing-room crowd, numbered among the “groundlings.” It’s a ton of fun—the actors invariably engage with the groundlings, addressing individuals when they speak asides, etc.

The play starts at 7:30, but aim to arrive a half hour early to ensure we get a decent spot on the floor. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, map.