R&J Act 5: Much delayed but we all know what's coming...

ACT 5:

Ah romeo's dream speech- hammer of foreshadow central.

I'd like to take this moment to say that Balthazar is an AWESOME role He comes out of nowhere, royally screws everything up by telling romeo of Juliet's "death" and does it with AMAZING language.

Then she is well and nothing can be ill:

Her body sleeps in Capel's monument

And her immortal part with angels lives.

and then we move on to the apothecary that Romeo remembers lives nearby...

Thanks, again, to my obsession with Nickleby the apothecary scene always makes me cry, even just with the first line of 

who calls so loud

The apothecary also gets the badass line of

My poverty, but not my will, consents

My god I think everyone has a moment or two where they think this, huh? I wonder if that was the thought of the actors involved in this travesty... by the by in no way to I approve or even suggest you watch this video clip, let alone the whole movie... I have yet to experience the feature film, but if we are talking about cultural baggage we have to include this creepy and odd piece:

5.2

A very short scene. just long enough for Balthazar to not be the only character that screwed everything up. It turns out the friar who was supposed to deliver Lawrence's letter about how Juliet's death is FAKE got re-routed due to the plague. oops. Again, I love that Lawrence realizes he's screwed up and faces his consequences, heading to fetch Juliet.

5.3 

The final scene, and like most of Shakespeare's final scenes, potentially difficult to stage what with the corpse times and crow bars and whatnot.This scene is where Paris really tips the scales for me. He has some beautiful lines and images and I just dont think the guy would be visiting her tomb alone if he didn't truly care for her. I mean the man's dying words are:

If thou be merciful

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet

After Romeo dispatches with Paris, there is even more light and dark talk than there has been this whole play- how did i never notice just how much of this there was before?!

Juliet waking up in the tomb with her dead love and her dead cousin and her dead would be 2nd husband- horror! and Friar Lawrence really screws up by being afraid enough of the prince to LEAVE HER THERE! so its really no surprise she offs herself. she was going to before and now there's been much more trauma. I think its admirable that the Friar even comes back to the scene.

Can we talk about how weird it is story wise that montague comes out and announces that oh yeah his wife died of grief?

And What do we think of the end of this play? I'm not sure I buy that with their death they end their parents strife- or maybe they end their parents but surely there are other members of these great households who are just more angry from these events? Or am I just really cynical with the world right now? And What do we think of the titular characters and their choice of death? Is it romantic? Cowardly? Stupid? All of the above?

OK, along with the end of R&J I leave you with the most horrifying cultural clash clip of all: Tromeo and Juliet. in no way do i support this film and in no way do i recommend you watch it. but if you do watch it- i recommend having a drink before and during.... and yes, you can find this whole horrifying movie on youtube...