Romeo and Juliet Play Review

Joey Wright

Ms Guarino

IB Lit and Performance SL

9/3/17


I had some mixed feelings about what I thought when I watched the play, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare on September 1st 2017 in a New Haven park. I wasn't sure how I felt about the whole play. I thought at some points it was interesting and on some points the play got a little dull.

The reason for this was because some of the dying scenes were drawn out for a long time where Romeo was talking about killing himself for ten minutes. at other times, the action scenes of the play were fairly good. The sword fighting was interesting as well. One thing that I did not like was the modern music being played in between the scenes, and then the old English that was being spoken. I did like the costumes. They were very nice and detailed and they looked like they fit the time period.

The stage setting was very interesting especially the lighting. One reason was because every time something bad was going to happen with Romeo, the lights would turn blue and become very dark. They did a good job of setting the atmosphere for the drama of the play. They also played a lot of music. I did not agree with this however, because it did not go along with the time period. The most important characters were obviously Romeo and Juliet because the story is about their love story. But another important character was the priest because he helped to try to orchestrate them fake killing themselves.

In my opinion, the player of Juliet was the best actress on the stage. She was very good at being dramatic yet humorous and happy. She really took on the role of Juliet very well. One of her best moments was when she couldn't let Romeo go because she kept on saying goodbye but not letting him leave at the same time. I thought this was very numerous because she didn't want to make a big commitment to Romeo, but she wouldn't let him go until he did ask her to marry him. I enjoyed watching her act because she had a very professional approach. She really made herself become Juliet. The actor for Romeo and her really were a great match for each other in the acting world.

Overall, I did not like the play. One thing that I struggled with was the way they were talking. I did not understand about half of the dialogue. They were also speaking very fast and it was very hard to keep up with. I didn't like that they were doing modern day dances either. This is a very old play, the whip and naenae should not be in the play. If that were the case, then they should have talked in regular English as well. I also didn't like that it was so predictable that something bad was going to happen when seriou music would qew in about 30 seconds before stuff happened.

I believe that one of the themes to this play is to go for what you want. Shoot for the stars. You only live once so why not be as great as you can be. I want to pursue my dreams the way that Romeo and Juliet pursued each other. I had respect for how determined Romeo was to make Juliet his wife. I think that Romeo is very courageous in this play. Another theme would be that not everything that you feel is right. You can't just marry somebody on a whim the way that Romeo and Juliet did. I believe that you should listen to what your heart and desires tell you to, but not everything is meant to be. An example of that is that they both ended up dead. Another theme would be that you can't let your emotions get the best of you. This is what happened when Romeo let his emotions block his judgement and killed Tibet. He didn't understand that what he was doing was wrong until he was dead. This is what I thought about the play Romeo and Juliet.