Romeo and Juliet Academic Theatre Review Kit*

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RSC-, ESC-, ASC-, OSF-, USF-, CSF-, ASF-, ST-, CST-, SSC-, S&C-compatible

(Ph.D. not included)

Instructions

[Insert director's name] set this

production of the perennial box-office favorite Romeo and Juliet in

Helpfully, the Montagues and the Capulets were differentiated visually on stage by

• □ costume design. [see Box A below]

• □ casting. [see Box B below]

• □ [neither? Delete preceding sentence and substitute Box C below]

Box A[choose one]: [costume]

□ Costumes were appropriate to the period and color-coded: shades of red for Capulets and blue for Montagues.

□ The only sartorial distinctions were the red and blue scarves that identify the embroiled parties.

□ The men of the Montague family sported civvies—soft, loose, off-white linen suits of the '20s—whereas those of the Capulet family wore the uniforms of Mussolini's brown shirts.

□ The Montagues were dour folk, always dressed in simple black. In contrast, the Capulets exhibited power, wealth, and sophistication in their classic sportables.

Box B[choose one]: [casting]

□ The production features a black Romeo and a white Juliet. Romeo's parents appear to be a successful African-American couple, the kind who pay their taxes and go to church. The Capulets are a white couple, apparently from the country-club set.

□ The production gave Romeo and Juliet modern resonances without modern dress, silently casting the Montagues with black and Asian actors and the Capulets with Europeans.

□ The Capulets wore white linen suits and were predominantly white, and the Montagues didn't and were predominantly black.

Box C[to be used only if neither Box A nor Box B applies]:

□ The production omitted the usual visual differentiation of the two houses, instead making the point that two indistinguishable families had striven to construct difference and enmity. Most of the wardrobe came straight from J. Crew and Eddie Bauer—casually modern dress in beige, brown, black, and white.

The production's concept was grounded in an astute recognition of the play's true theme:

Box D[choose one]:

□ The director understood Romeo and Juliet to be a domestic tragedy, if one with political overtones.

□ The director placed more weight on fate than on the feud between Montagues and Capulets as the reason for the lovers' tragedy.

□ The production explored racial divisiveness and urban violence in modern America.

□ Rather than rendering the play contemporary by stressing the echoes of modern-day gang warfare and urban unrest, the production emphasized the inter-family/intra-family conflicts that characterize many affluent suburban communities and sub-communities and sometimes result in violence and tragedy.

□ This Romeo and Juliet was more concerned with the cyclical violence and self-destructiveness of its broader social world than with the relationship between its titular lovers.

□ The interpretive approach stressed the death-obsession of the "star-crossed lovers."

□ This opulently Renaissance Romeo and Juliet was thoroughly contemporary (despite the absence of skateboards and iPods), focused on the unhappy, dangerous, alienating distance between parents and their children.

□ Resisting the temptation to stage the play as a clash of cultures, races, religions or political parties, the production freed the audience to see the characters as individuals and not mere archetypes.

As Juliet, [insert actor's name] was

Box E[choose one]: [utterly believable]

□ The part is notoriously difficult, presenting a classic problem in casting: if you're young enough to look the part, you haven't got the experience or technique; and by the time you have those things, it's too late to pretend to be thirteen. This Juliet has the looks, and the experience, and she made the part her own.

□ Juliet was realistically portrayed as a self-centered adolescent.

□ Juliet was winning from the start, both youthfully innocent and strong in her determination. A raspy quality in her voice appeared to be the result of frequent confrontations with her parents and the Nurse.

□ Juliet acted her role as the almost-fourteen...