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| Romeo & Juliet | ||||
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| Romeo (Michael Tolfo) discovers Juliet in the tomb, believing she’s dead. | Romeo tries to intervene in the knife fight between Mercutio (Joel Jordan) and Tybalt (Eric Methany) | |||
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| The friar (Brian Tree) secretly marries Romeo to Juliet |
The friar mixes the potion for Juliet which will make her appear to be dead | |||
Juliet is thirteen years old, and has just been told by her mother that she must marry Paris, a man she has never met. Romeo has been yearning for the elusive Rosaline when he is struck with Juliet’s beauty, and suddenly transfers all his yearning to her. So we have two impetuous teen-agers: Romeo on the rebound and Juliet marriage-bound, when they meet and fall in love. Their passion ends in death because Juliet’s parents won’t listen, because the friar comes up with a foolish, dangerous plan, and then bad luck and bad timing do the rest. But most of all, the lovers die because they believe they have no other choice. |
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By having very young actors play Romeo and Juliet, we emphasize the lovers’ inexperience and confusion. These are lonely children playing at love. And when the game goes wrong, they don’t know what to do. They are, or should be, objects of pity: not models for young people to admire. |
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