R&J Act 2: my unabashed love for Friar Lawrence...

Act 2 starts with another Prologue- which many productions tend to cut. I happen to love that the Chorus appears again. I love that we re-cap how obsessed with Rosaline Romeo was and I think its interesting that the chorus says DESIRE doth in his death-bed lie, and YOUNG AFFECTION gapes to be his heir. Assuring-or perhaps not and merely teasing depending on your chorus- the audience that this thing with Juliet is different.

Finally I just love the ending couplet:

But passion lends the power, time, means to meet

Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.

2.1

I find this scene incredibly annoying and difficult to stage. the whole point of it is that Romeo is hiding from his friends and his friends are actually saying some pretty awesome stuff but no one cares because everyone is looking at hiding Romeo.

*have any other Shakespeare nerds noticed that King Cophetua is alluded to a lot? And by a lot I mean I remember this from Love's Labours and Henry IV.2

Reasons to love Mercutio: "THE APE IS DEAD"

For those of you that have not had the pleasure of hearing Tiffany Stern speak on apes at fairs- this allusion is even more amazing once you have and my description of her talk could never do it justice. Does anyone know if she's written an article on this? because I'd love to share it... basically they would train apes to "play dead" when they heard specific phrases and then "come back to life" when they heard other phrases i.e. "the Spanish armada!" :ape faints: "Queen Elizabeth in all her splendor" :ape is revived:

So... I think this scene is one of the dirtiest scenes in Shakespeare thanks to our good friend Mercutio and I marvel at the fact that we teach this to high school sophomores and try to make it "family friendly" 

Fun side story/rant: One of my brothers was studying this play last year and his teacher, who was young and fresh out of her undergrad/certification program decided that a good assignment would be to make this play "hip" by having all the students translate a scene into "text speak"- you know, with numbers standing in for words etc. etc. (Even though with the rise in smart phones/predictive text that kind of communication is on the decline) and my poor brother chose this scene and he and my mother called Dan and me to help with the project- I think they were both mortified when we talked through some of the lines. a recount of some of my favorite text-speech suggestions...

"I conjure Thee by Rosaline's bright eyes... quivering thight, and the demesnes that adjacent lie" became

 "I'll holler @ him bout Rosaline from her eyes to her lady bits"

I can't remember my text suggestion for the erection joke that follows, but I do know that when we got to the bit about Romeo sitting under a medlar tree and the line

"O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were

An open-arse, thou a pop-rin pear!"

my text translation was:

"what what in the butt" at which point my mom and brother declined any more help and I told them to tell his teacher that this was a DUMB assignment.... but I digress...

TEACHING MOMENT: one of my favorite lessons from Textual Culture taught by Professor Menzer was looking at this passage and how editors gloss the anal sex joke in various editions. It is amazing how prudish most editors are and it is an excellent example of how editors skew the way we read these plays.

The scene ends with Mercutio and Benvolio giving up their search for Romeo and heading home to bed.

Perhaps the most famous scene ever: The R&J balcony scene.

If you want to make an argument for this actually being a love story and not just stupid teens wanting to get it on as soon as possible/ Romeo substituting any pretty girl for Rosaline- look at the drastic improvement in Romeo's poetry from Act 1 until now. instead of absurd rhymes and teen angst we get:

"the brightness of her cheek would shame those stars"

and

"O that I were a glove upon that hand, 

That I might touch that cheek!"

and

"O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art

As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,

As is a winged messenger of heaven"

Newlywed moment: The line "be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet" really hit me reading it this time around. Because most women still give up their names when they get married right? What does that mean? And for Juliet it means even more than that right? Because in all likelihood she's not just giving up the name (though perhaps that is her hopeful thinking) but also the support of her family? It is strange to think of no longer being the name you grew up with, and I think we just assume it happens without considering the effects of being "newly baptized" as Romeo puts it a few lines later. and how interesting that by the end of her speech she is asking Romeo to give up his name- the shift of who is taking on which identity...

Performance note: I think its important to play up the potential creepyness of when Romeo answers Juliet and she doesnt know who he is yet. Or as our Sassy Gay Friend puts it- the stalker in the garden moment... before we move on back to sappy lover town...

So the delightful thing about this scene is that Juliet is relatively practical concerning Romeo's safety, marriage, etc. and Romeo is absurdly dramatic and epic about things. Juliet's practical let's not swear by ridiculous things speech is only made better by her romantic side a few lines later:

And yet I wish but for the thing i have.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep; the more I five to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite

And if that is not how I feel about the awesomeness of marriage right now then I don't know what is. Love and abundance and gratitude are linked in the most beautiful way, aren't they?!

 You get to see a glimpse into how well they could balance each other since Juliet seems to have some success getting this guy to calm down and focus a bit and we will see in a few scenes how he brings out the epic imagery in Juliet we have yet to see.

Teaching times: OK, if Midsummer was a perfect play to teach rhyme scheme then R&J is the perfect play to teach foreshadowing. seriously. Both of them foreshadow how shortly their perfect love will last and how likely it is to end in disaster. Juliet talks about it being like the "lightning which ceases to be ere one can say it  lightens" (more light and dark a la yesterdays observations) and Romeo talks about how if its night maybe this is just like a dream- which means you have to wake up. we'll keep documenting these hammer to the head moments as we go along...

OK, wash of lovely emotions and insane foreshadowing aside, this is where i keep loving Juliet's language but can't relate to her timing- maybe because I thankfully live in a world where there's no need to rush into marriage. I certainly understand the never wanting to get married until you meet someone you want to marry sentiment. But not the- quick! decide if you want to marry me now or leave me alone forever mentality.  Clara's comment on yesterday's post about how very VERY young Juliet is taper's my bewilderment and also makes me that much more impressed with how SMART this little girl is. 

When Romeo tells her that she should send a messenger to him by 9 tomorrow, Juliet replies

"I will not fail, tis twenty year till then"

Isn't that fantastic? I am obsessed with the way Shakespeare plays with time and our conception of time. I will probably keep looking at this as well. 

More foreshadowing: Juliet wishes romeo to have "sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast" -very deathlike language only multiplied by Romeo's lines which repeat sleep, peace, and then go on to talk of rest, and ghostly sire's close cell.

2.3

Speaking of ghostly sire--- let's talk about who might be my FAVORITE character in this play: Friar Lawrence.

2.3 opens with an often cut to pieces yet stunningly beautiful soliloquy, it reminds me of Cerimon's speeches in Pericles.  I think this speech is incredible as not only does it have phrases such as "darkness like a drunkard reels" but it also has deep, disturbing lines like "The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb, What is her burying grave, that is her womb" if that doesn't encapsulate the sex and death themes of this play then please find me a line that does it better. There's also this incredible exploration of how plants that are poisonous are also healing- very much like the opportunities people in this play have to be poisonous and violent or loving. I saw this play done at the RSC on my summer abroad with Pepperdine and the director's vision/argument with that production was what love cannot live in a culture of violence. I think its much more interesting and moving to think about how somehow love can begin EVEN in a culture of violence. "two such opposed kings encamp them still/ in man as well as herbs, grace and rude will"

So after Fr.'s awesome speech, Romeo enters and what follows is how I wish all relationships between confessor and parishioner could be- the friar does an incredible job of cutting through any ifs ands or buts and is friendly yet direct with Romeo about if he is troubled, or if he has "not been in bed tonight" for some other reason... he already knows all about Rosaline and is concerned with Romeo's penchant for trying to fornicate with her. He demands Romeo stop beating around the bush with his answers and when Romeo tells him of his love for Juliet and asks the friar to marry them what is the response? 

HOLY SAINT FRANCIS (fantastic oath. and always funny.)

then he goes on to reprimand Romeo for changing affections so quickly. 

A little sampling of their awesome dialogue:

ROM.

Thou chidst me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRI. L.

For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROM.

And badst me bury love.

FRI. L.

Not in a grave,

To lay one in, another out to have.

ROM.

I pray thee chide me not. Her I love now

Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;

The other did not so.

FRI. L.

O, she knew well

Thy love did read by rote that could not spell.

Seriously, if I am already too old to play Juliet then will someone PLEASE cast me as the Friar?!?! 

And finally the scene ends with some more foreshadowing: Friar warns Romeo: Wisely and slowly, they stumble that run fast.

2.4 We are back to my new favorite envisioning of How I Met Your Mother- Benvolio and Tybalt talk about a challenge Tybalt sent to Romeo (presumably for crashing the party now that Lord Capulet isn't there to stop him.

Highlight includes Mercutio's: 

Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabb’d with a white wench’s black eye, run through the ear with a love-song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

The next bit about Tybalt is a fight choreographer's dream as it list a bunch of dueling moves you can incorporate into the later fight.
Romeo comes in and the banter gets dirty and there's a lot of hey look at me i'm manly and i'm showing it!! The thing I love about this exchange is that Benvolio sits there quietly and only chimes in with a zinger about erections.
Then enters the nurse with good ol' Peter the servant. I enjoy that this scene can either be deliciously flirtatious with the nurse  or else kind of edgy and creepy if she genuinely does not like the comments she is receiving from Romeos friends. Also: Mercutio sings in this scene. Has anyone ever seen a production that kept his strange little ditties? because I'd like to...
There are scores more sexual jokes- maybe if I teach this one day I should have the students play spot the THAT'S WHAT SHE (or he) SAID moments...
I also think that once the other boys leave and the Nurse is getting down to business with Romeo that you get a chance, amidst the humor and rambling, to see how much attention she pays and doting she does to/about Juliet. It is incredibly sweet and I think the Juliet/Nurse relationship depicts an incredible amount of love.
2.5
"Love's heralds should be thoughts
Which ten times faster glides than the sun's beams"
More anxiety over time here as Juliet waits for the nurse's return.
You also get a wonderful couplet about youthful Juliet's feeling about the pace of the elderly:
"But old folks- many feign as they were dead,
Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead."
The rest of the scene I'm afraid i'm going to give short shrift to because it is a delightful scene between the nurse and Juliet, as she teases Juliet before admitting that Romeo waits to marry her- but something my darling husband became fascinated with in this scene is that the Nurse tells Juliet she will fetch a (rope) ladder which Romeo can use to climb into Juliet's room so they can have their wedding night- note this because it will come up again later.

2.6
Romeo has some more foreshadowing saying "then love-devouring death do what he dare"
and the Friar warning him "these violent delights have violent ends... therefore love moderately: long love doth so..."
Juliet's words before her wedding speaks straight to my heart:
"They are but beggars that can count their worth,
But my true love is grown to such excess
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth"
 

or as this guy put it I think Juliet couldn't be happier, wealthier, or more in love

The final line of the act is Friar Lawrence saying "you shall not stay alone Till Holy Church incorporate two in one" I love that he doesn't trust them alone for a second not to just jump on each other, and that he couches it in such lovely terms.
Those of you who haven't studied early modern theatre- it is worth noting that the wedding does not take place on stage because people at the time hadn't really figured out if that would actually make the actors married. If the words in front of witnesses were enough, even if they were only playing at the intention behind it and even if the priest wasn't a real priest. Betrothals/handfastings/weddings were a bit of a different process then so it was really important to an early modern audience that the actual vows not be shown onstage. (Especially considering Juliet was being played by a young boy...)
and that's Act 2.

Get ready for this comedy to end....

 

 

Today's picture is also your R&J cultural adaptation- Benvolio, Romeo, and Mercutio (played by Sean Lyons, Zac Hoogendyk, and Chris Kervick) in This Bridge Theatre's Shakespeare's R&J by Joe Calarco. The show essentially revolves around the idea that four Catholic school boys are changed by going through this play together- I highly recommend reading the script.