Much greater success was won by Thomas Otway's adaptation in , which was the only version of the play to be seen on stage for about 70 years. It responded to the crisis over the English throne by placing greater emphasis on the political issues of state within the play.
In , Theophilus Cibber played Romeo in a version closer to the original that retained some of Otway's additions, such as Juliet waking before Romeo dies. This production boasted the unusual casting of father and daughter in the title roles — he in his early forties, she just Judging by contemporary comments, this did not go down too well with audiences. Garrick removed many of Shakespeare's bawdy jokes and sexual references, reducing Mercutio's role and simplifying that of Juliet.
Responding to his audience's taste, he kept the tear-jerking sentimentality of the lovers' final embraces. This version of the play became the standard text for the stage over the next century. Barry was more praised as an ardent lover while Garrick was felt to be better suited to the tragic aspects of the role. Audiences could have their cake and eat it too by enjoying Barry at Covent Garden for the first half of the play before heading off to Drury Lane to see Garrick die tragically in the second.
As one contemporary female theatregoer put it: "Had I been Garrick's Juliet — so impassioned was he, I should have expected that he would have come up to me on the balcony; but had I been Juliet to Barry's Romeo — so tender and seductive was he, I should certainly have jumped down to him! Throughout the 19th century, the role of Juliet was seen as an important marker of a young actress's claim to fame.
In the midth century, actresses were also allowed a crack at the male lead, showing how Romeo was seen to lack masculinity. The most successful of these female Romeos was the American Charlotte Cushman, who, partnered by her sister, Susan, was a huge hit. In , Henry Irving and Ellen Terry took the lead roles in a celebrated production at the Lyceum, which delighted the audience with its lavishly Italianate settings, processions and crowd scenes. The most jaw-dropping sequence saw Romeo slew Paris in the churchyard before carrying his corpse down a flight of stairs where, by virtue of a seemingly miraculous scene change, he was revealed in the gloom of a Gothic crypt.
At the end of the century, the management of the Lyceum was taken over by Johnston Forbes-Robertson, who was highly praised as a graceful and romantic Romeo in his own production of the play.
The play remained very popular throughout the twentieth century. In the first decade of the century, William Poel led the Elizabethan Stage Society in its traditional staging of several of Shakespeare's plays, with a simple thrust stage for fast-paced fluid action. The pace and panache of John Gielgud's Romeo and Juliet in at the New Theatre made the critics take note and admire the simple Italian Renaissance setting and the excellence of the performances.
Peggy Aschroft played Juliet and Edith Evans the Nurse - both to great acclaim - but it was the alternating of the roles of Romeo and Mercutio by Gielgud and Laurence Olivier that really fascinated the audience. Although Romeo and Juliet was set during the Elizabethan time period, there are many distinct parts that are not felt by historians to be accurate. Such as the idea that Elizabethan couples married at such a young age, as in Romeo and Juliet.
In contrast, most Elizabethan women married between the ages of 26, and the men between This is the oldest average marrying age for any society known Franson, p. Actually, Elizabethans believed that women being married at a young age and having sex with your husband led to permanent damage to your health. For the young man, getting married and having sex would lead to impaired physical and mental development and together the young married couple would produce sickly children.
Franson p. It has been said by one historian that Shakespeare wrote this play about the young lovers to show the dangers of marrying at such a young age, and it has even been suggested that this stemmed from his first marriage at 18, which was not successful Franson p. Since Shakespeare obviously knew the socially accepted norm for men and women to be married, and he still made Romeo and Juliet extremely young, it suggests in the play that there will be some tragic outcome to the young lovers actions.
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William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet. How old was Juliet Capulet when she died? Juliet fell in love with Romeo Montague, the rival family's son. His parents would have liked her to marry a young count, Paris, a relation of the Prince, but she refused.
She fought for her love for Romeo, overcoming many troubles, and eventually committed suicide. She died in , at only twelve years old. Was there a real Romeo and Juliet? According to some, the real Romeo and Juliet were in fact from Siena, but since Shakespeare was so fond of Verona, he placed the story there. But the names of the families—the Montagues and the Capulets—were two real-life important aristocratic families from Verona. Dante Alighieri mentions them in his Divine Comedy.
How old is Juliet's father? Answers 2. Juliet is turning fourteen years old. Her father would like Paris to wait another two years before marriage. When was Romeo born? Fictional Obituary: Romeo and Juliet. He was born in the National Hospital of Verona on the 20th October What do hot cherry peppers look like?
How does the refractive index of a transparent medium depend on the wavelength? What is internal and external criticism of historical sources?
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