I have never before read Romeo and Juliet, so I figured I'd better hurry up and read it before starting in on this project. It's such a bloody mess of folks killing each other that by today's movie rating standards it would probably be rated at least R and possibly X for the level of violence, so I figure I oughta use the most deathly background pattern I could find.
This play starts out looking like it's gonna be lotsa fun. Here's these two dudes cracking jokes about whether they oughta be colliers, be in choler, or stick their necks out of their collars. Then, a few gags about what stands to move them or what moves them to stand. Of course they've gotta get in a few sly digs about having some fair maidens' heads or having their maidenheads.
Then Romeo and Juliet meet at a party and recite lotsa poetry at each other and instantly fall in love. Of course, Romeo has gotta dump his long-term girlfriend Rosaline, whom we never meet in the play, so we never find out what she thinks. And Juliet has gotta welch out of her upcoming marriage with Paris, who's one of the guys that eventually ends up getting bumped off.
So then the lovers elope and the feud erupts big-time. The first guy to get done in is Mercutio, just a friend caught in the middle, not a member of either family. He utters the famous cry, "A plague o' both your houses!" in Act III Scene I not once, but twice (in lines 95 and 104) in the lengthy and ponderous oration he orates while dropping dead. It almost looks like dying musta been lotsa fun back in those days, although I can't imagine it.
In fact, everybody who gets creamed in stands there reciting epic poetry while dropping off. It's just so unreal! I'm quite certain that if I got killed by violent means I'd probably not get my wits together for more than one quick "F--K YOU!" or something like that before the final kicking of the bucket. But maybe folks were tougher back then. Or maybe characters in plays are granted the poetic license to be a buncha phonies.
I think I dimly recall once having watched somebody's cheap home movie of some junior high school English class putting on the play. They did a crummy job, the camera was badly out of focus, and the girl who played Juliet wasn't really all that cute. I think I slept through most of it.
