After Juliet

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After Juliet is a play written by Scottish playwright Sharman Macdonald. [1] It was commissioned for the 2000 [2] Connections programme, in which regional youth theatre groups compete to stage short plays by established playwrights. Juliet is decisive when she fakes her own death so she can be with Romeo. She listens to Friar Laurence's plan and decides to fulfil it.

Beyond this, the production aspects were variable in effect. Some props – Valentine’s umbrella for example – were well used and added to the piece, but bringing several longswords onto the Corpus stage and actually trying to fight with them was not a wise decision. Lighting and sound were similarly hit and miss. The rain effect was good, until it lasted a few more scenes than necessary (or than made sense, once the action had moved inside), and the crypt sound effect would have added well to the atmosphere, had the silence between loops not broken it. The crypt lighting was more successful, and other changes were effective, but the lighting in other scenes was unnecessary. As a result, it is difficult for me to dwell on performances, which largely did not arrest us; I do not think this was always the fault of the performers, since I sensed there was a great deal of talent which could not fully blossom within the confines of the production. Some rose above it, however. First and foremost, Robert Drummer as Valentine: here is an assured, stylish, confident actor, with a fine presence and strong natural delivery, who created interest. Josh Duhigg ran him a close second as Benvolio; again, this actor has presence and command - also a stillness of movement and delivery, two valuable assets. The scenes are linked and interspersed by the very lovely peripatetic flute playing of Julia Gibb, with music composed by one of the Progresss resident music masters, Peter Charles.The play centres on Rosaline, Juliet's cousin and Romeo's ex-flame. Ironically, Rosaline had been in love with Romeo, but was playing "hard to get". Tortured by the loss of her love, Rosaline has become a sullen, venomous woman. She actively seeks to be elected the 'Princess of Cats' and run the Capulet family. This performance seemed somewhat confused between its Renaissance and more modern setting Jonah Walker The play makes “heavy use of repetition, and it seems as if the characters are just going in circles” Ian Wang The basic premise of the play, following on from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is "What happened to the Capulets and Montagues after Romeo and Juliet died?". The setting of After Juliet is described as " Verona. Or it could be Edinburgh, Dublin, Birmingham, New York City, or Liverpool. It could be 1500, 1900, 2000, or 3000". [3] The only place that After Juliet cannot be set is Glasgow, as one of the characters, Rhona, is from Glasgow, and away from home. [4]

The climax of the play comes during an election to determine whether or not Rosaline or Petruchio (Tybalt's brother) will succeed Tybalt as the Prince or Princess of Cats. The election fails to have any results and the fate of the truce is left open-ended. [5] Romeo requests that Juliet declares her love for him and Juliet simply replies that she has already done so. This shows how loving and passionate she is, as she has given her love and heart to Romeo.All in all a lively and affecting performance of a play that might well, however, be less interesting if it wasnt already stood on the shoulders of a giant.

Presenter: Oh and an inspired touch! I don’t think anybody saw that shot coming! Super special effects skill from the director there. Well played my son! The young lad Romeo has killed himself believing Juliet to be dead by poison and she has awoke to find him dead and killed herself with his dagger. It’s a veritable bloodbath and there’s not a dry eye in the house. But only if the director does his job right. Her angry tirade to Juliet at the lovers tomb is wonderful, and reminiscent of Brian Patten's poem, A Few Questions About Romeo – "Could he still have drunk that potion had he known / without her the world still glowed / and love was not confined / in one shape alone? … Poor Romeo, poor Juliet, poor human race". I find myself in somewhat of a quandary penning this review, since I was not -and still am not -quite sure of what I was watching. Was it a play, a Masque, a fantasia, a choreographic display or an intellectual ego trip? In the cold light of afterwards, I am inclined to think it was all of these, but the balance was heavily weighted in favour of the last two.

Cast

Baz Luhrman’s film of Romeo and Juliet with Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio prompted Sharman Macdonald’s 13-year-old daughter Keira Knightley to tell her to write play about Rosaline. Undoubtedly Rosaline appears on stage in Romeo and Juliet and at the Capulet’s party but she is not in the cast list and, although Romeo is besotted with her in Act I Scene 1, she is only mentioned twice. The daughter's demand together with the film's electrifying music and the tough sinewy style that made the Shakespearean language a dialect that young people could use, led Sharman Macdonald to speculate on how she could explore what happened in the days immediately after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare situates this maturation directly after Juliet’s wedding night, linking the idea of development from childhood to adulthood with sexual experience. Indeed, Juliet feels so strong that she defies her father, but in that action she learns the limit of her power. Strong as she might be, Juliet is still a woman in a male-dominated world. One might think that Juliet should just take her father up on his offer to disown her and go to live with Romeo in Mantua. That is not an option. Juliet, as a woman, cannot leave society; and her father has the right to make her do as he wishes. Though defeated by her father, Juliet does not revert to being a little girl. She recognizes the limits of her power and, if another way cannot be found, determines to use it: for a woman in Verona who cannot control the direction of her life, suicide, the brute ability to live or not live that life, can represent the only means of asserting authority over the self. Although it is entitled "After Juliet", it seemed to me to be also "before"Juliet (particularly as Rosaline, Romeo's ex-girl friend featured so prominently), and also "during"Juliet, with extracts from Shakespeare's play occurring frequently, the scene between Friar Laurence and Romeo in Act II being included almost verbatim. We also had "do you bite your thumb at me?"which you will find in the opening of R & J. The plot of After Juliet is quite sparse. Honestly, it’s more of an extended epilogue to Romeo and Juliet (albeit with a cast of almost exclusively new characters) than its own narrative. I didn’t mind this, but it does stop the play from having a stronger identity of its own. I wasn’t a huge fan of most of the characters: Rosaline, the text’s clear pride and joy, was surprisingly underdeveloped after all that I had heard about this work (although I recognize that all of her lines and behavior could certainly be bolstered by a dynamic performance) and Benvolio (the only real character of significance in this play that also had a considerable role in Romeo and Juliet) was disappointingly reduced to nothing more than a puppy dog mooning after her. However, this could very well be my retelling bias at play: I was so enamored with the Rosaline and Benvolio of Melinda Taub’s Still Star-Crossed (the book, not the TV series of the same name) that they somehow became my quintessential versions of the characters, and it’s possible that I would have liked After Juliet's interpretations of the characters more had I not been exposed to so many other versions beforehand. Kate Duffy does remarkably well playing Rosaline and captures the confused and often helpless emotions that are pulling her hither and thither. Juliet gives glimpses of her determination, strength, and sober-mindedness, in her earliest scenes, and offers a preview of the woman she will become during the four-day span of Romeo and Juliet. While Lady Capulet proves unable to quiet the Nurse, Juliet succeeds with one word (also in Act 1, scene 3). In addition, even in Juliet’s dutiful acquiescence to try to love Paris, there is some seed of steely determination. Juliet promises to consider Paris as a possible husband to the precise degree her mother desires. While an outward show of obedience, such a statement can also be read as a refusal through passivity. Juliet will accede to her mother’s wishes, but she will not go out of her way to fall in love with Paris.In a moment reminiscent of the balcony scene, once outside, Romeo bids farewell to Juliet as she stands at her window. Here, the lovers experience visions that blatantly foreshadow the end of the play. This is to be the last moment they spend alive in each other’s company. When Juliet next sees Romeo he will be dead, and as she looks out of her window she seems to see him dead already: “O God, I have an ill-divining soul! / Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, / As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. / Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale” (3.5.54–57). I could have used a bit more brain, though; “& Juliet” sometimes seems suspicious of its own intelligence, like a nerd invited to the cool kids’ party, only to get drunk and vomit in the pool. The play is watched by a chorus of young Capulet women, the chief of which is the spiteful, bitchy, spoilt princess Alice, another of Juliet's cousins, played spiritedly by Laura Walton. Get whisked away on a fabulous journey as Juliet ditches her famous ending for a fresh beginning and a second chance at life and love—her way. Created by the Emmy-winning writer from “Schitt’s Creek,” this hilarious new musical flips the script on the greatest love story ever told and asks, what would happen next if Juliet didn’t end it all over Romeo?