Review of Romeo and Juliet

Review of Romeo and Juliet

Written by William Shakespeare
Director: Raphael Massie
Romeo: Steven Johnson
Juliet: Courtney Jamison
September 1, 2017
Edgerton Park in New Haven at 8 pm

Romeo and Juliet is the masterpiece written by Shakespeare.  On September 1, 2017, the literature was once again brought to the stage at Edgerton Park in New Haven.  We were there at around 7 pm to see the play.  The main actors are Steven Johnson who acts Romeo and Courtney Jamison who is the actress of Juliet.  The director of the play is Raphael Massie.

The play is a romantic tragedy.  It mainly tells about that two people, Romeo and Juliet, fell in love with each other in a party, but the family they belong are in opposition, so the families are doomed to reject the two people’s marriage.  However, true love is not afraid of difficulties, Juliet drinks the special poison that can push a person to death for a few hours and come back to life after hours.  She wants to run away from home with Romeo, so she asks a person to tell the truth to Romeo so that he can meet her when she wakes.  However, Romeo does not receive the information, and he believes Juliet is dead.  He suicides by drinking a real bottle of poison.  He dies next to Juliet, and Juliet sees the situation when she wakes.  Romeo’s death drags Juliet to a deep sorrow, so she decides to go with Romeo by stabbing herself to death.  In the end, the two families reconcile.  The story advocates the power of love.  Love can go beyond the death, and love can bring peace to people, and people who are in love are all brave.  Even though love sometimes can cause death or war, love itself is pure, and it can break every difficulty.

The drama was played in the park in chilly weather.  It is a spacious area to play, which requires all audiences should see the stage.  The stage is a four-floor building, which makes the structure of the stage more complex.  The largest floor is put up upon the grass, which can be the public street or dancing pool of the Capulet.  Two slopes connect the largest floor to the lawn, which can let the actors communicate with audiences.  I like the slopes structure because the slopes can connect the play to audiences when actors run up and run down through the slopes.

The color and style of the costumes are amazing.  Audiences can recognize the characters’ identity by distinguishing the costumes.  People who wear the dark and simple costumes are slaves and servants; people who wear beautiful and colorful clothes are wealthy people.  Distinguishing the two different families by different color is smart.  Capulets wear costumes in cold blue, while Montagues wear the opposite warm red costume.  The color is so different that audience can easily find out their identity.

Music on the stage is the modern music, such as blues, pop and jazz music.  The costumes are similar to ancient time, but the music is used modern music.  Even though the modern music is more popular and more acceptable than western European classical music, it does not seem likely to fit in the background that the story tells.  The modern music can work when the setting happens in the modern world, which means characters are in modern costumes.  The good example is Sherlock Holme in BBC.  However, the music itself is amazing.  The music at the beginning of the story embellishes the sadness that the director wants to tell, and the dance and the music of party successfully push the story to the happiest moment.

 In the play, I like the actor of Nurse.  Nurse is Juliet’s attendant and friend, which means Nurse has more liberty and right speech than other servants, but she is still a servant.  It is difficult to act both casually and cautiously, but the actor of Nurse acts out perfectly.  At the beginning of the story, she laughs a lot with Juliet.  Nurse is Juliet’s good friend, and they keep no secrets from each other.  She can even disturb the conversation between the queen and Juliet.  However, when the story becomes serious, Nurse is struggling whether she should support Juliet or follow queen’s orders.  As a servant, Nurse can change her view according to the circumstance.  One scene is that Juliet’s father asks Juliet to marry a kinsman, but Juliet is not willing to.  Juliet asked Nurse who she should choose, the kinsman or Romeo.  Nurse used to support the love between Juliet and Romeo, but now she suggests to choose the kinsman.  As a friend, she supports Juliet; as a servant, she has to follow orders.

I like the play because the delicate stage arrangement and actors’ acting make the story real and make audiences easy to drop into the plot.  The actors on the stage said every word loudly and clearly.  Most of the time, they exaggerated their emotion by exaggerating their action and aggravating words.  It is the feature of play, and it is easy for the audience to understand the story in a short time.