We'll need to make this a two- or three-month break.

        

OK, so today we say goodbye to my favorite play (from before this project, and through this project). Romeo and Juliet is my favorite play and tragedy thus far.

Thus far.

Tomorrow was to begin King John.

Was to.

Tomorrow, however, I will be beginning a month-long break, a sabbatical, if you will. I don't want to take a break, and I don't need to take a break (I'll never need a break from the Bard). But I do need time.

As listeners to the podcasts know, I lost my paying day job at the end of January (no more dodging those bullets in the war against the economy). I still haven't found gainful employment, but my wife Lisa has lit a fire under me. She said early on in this forced vacation, "Bill, you always complain that you never have time to write a novel or a screenplay... well, now you do."

Of course, through February, March, and April, I was as devoid of good ideas as I was of work. That changed in the first half of May, when I finally was struck by an idea worth exploring. And I began to write a novel, a mystery (with the quasi-Shakespearean title of A Bloody Rose by Any Other). This Project has given me the stamina and discipline to write every day, and I'm making good progress.  So since mid-May, I've been kind of serving two masters.

Lately, though, I find myself feeling that Shakespeare is encroaching on my novel (thematically and topically, sure, that was intended; temporally, not so much).

So I'm taking a break in this upcoming month of June while I attempt to finish a rough first draft... I figure I can revise and edit and do the Project concurrently, I just can't compose and do the Project at the same time.

Of course, the fear is that, like my teaching career, a short break will turn out to be a permanent one. The only thing I have to fear is THAT fear itself.

I'll still update the Facebook page with Shakespeare news and notes, but the blog entries and podcasts will go into hibernation for a month.

Wish me luck... and see you all in July with King John!

        

This week's podcast continues our month-long discussion of Romeo and Juliet, including a discussion of one of the most important concepts of the play, a couple of reviews of Romeo and Juliet-related DVDs, a cast, a discussion of production concepts, then do our recap of this week's blog entries.  

Download | Duration: 00:14:46

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com , which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.

        

Romeo and Juliet

• 3004 total lines; longer than average play and tragedy (average play: 2777; average tragedy: 2890)
• At 14 lines, the Choruses for both Acts One and Two are the shortest of its kind in the Canon
• At 244 lines, Act Three, Scene Five is the longest of its kind in the Canon
• Act One: 718 lines; longer than average (average play: 590, average tragedy: 647)
• Act Two: 666 lines; longer than average (average play: 568, average tragedy: 573)
• Act Three: 794 lines; longer than average (average play: 576, average tragedy: 633)
• Act Four: 401 lines; shorter than average (average play: 563, average tragedy: 555)
• Act Five: 425 lines; shorter than average (average play: 480, average tragedy: 465)
• 426 lines of prose (14.18% of total lines [as opposed to The Comedy of Errors: 13.31%, Titus Andronicus: 1.39%, The Taming of the Shrew: 20.82%, 1HenryVI: 0.37%, 2HenryVI: 16.64%, 3HenryVI: 0.14%, Richard III: 2.89%, Love's Labor's Lost: 35.08%, The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 26.81%, and A Midsummer Night's Dream: 19.75%])
• 499 rhyming lines (16.61% of total lines [as opposed to Comedy: 20.10%, Titus: 2.42%, Taming: 3.93%, 1HenryVI: 9.79%, 2HenryVI: 3.16%, 3HenryVI: 5.37%, Richard III: 7.55%, LLL: 40.86%, 2Gents: 35.08%, and Midsummer: 43.5%])
• 26 scenes; more than average (average play: 21; average tragedy: 23)
• only 33 characters (slightly less than average, less than average for tragedy [average play: 36, average tragedy: 41])

        

Using Professor Rodes' midpoint theory , let's take a look at Romeo and Juliet.

There are 3004 lines in this play, which puts the midpoint at line 1502, which is 118 lines into Act Three, Scene One. And for the first time in the Canon, the crucial line is not within twenty lines in either direction of the midpoint.

It IS the midpoint.

... << MORE >>

OK, let's take on a major concept of the play. When asked what Romeo and Juliet is about, most will say love, or young love, or youth, or fate, or hate. Ask me, and I'll say: it's about two hours long

[cue rim-shot]

Look, it's right there in the prologue: "two hours' traffic of our stage" (1Chorus, 12). Now, I might sound a little facetious here, but it's to put forth a serious point. I would go so far as to say that this play is about TIME, and what happens when we rush, when we don't have enough time to think. ... << MORE >>

In Romeo and Juliet, the Capulets are a fascinating family.

... << MORE >>

[rated NC-17... proceed with caution]

Last month we had almost no bawdiness in Midsummer. The same cannot be said of this month's Romeo and Juliet.

... << MORE >>

From the opening Prologue we know that Romeo and Juliet are going to end up dead, will "take their life" (1Chorus, 6). And the death references abound, but a few are pure foreshadowing:

• Romeo: "some vile forfeit of untimely death" (I.iv.111)
• Juliet: "My grave is like to be my wedding bed" (I.v.136)
• Nurse: "Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?" (II.iv.201-202); rosemary was used in funeral wreaths
• Friar Laurence: "These violent delights have violent ends" (II.vi.9)
• Juliet: "when I shall die" (III.ii.21)
• Juliet: "I'll to my wedding bed; // And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!" (III.ii.136-137)
• Capulet: "Well, we are born to die" (III.iv.4)
• Juliet to Romeo: "Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, // As one dead in the bottom of a tomb" (III.v.55-56)
• Juliet: "Or hide me nightly in a charnel house" (IV.i.81); a charnel house is a "vault in which the bones of the dead are piled up" (Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM [v. 4.0])
• Romeo: "I dreamt my lady came and found me dead" (V.i.6)

        

This week's podcast continues our month-long discussion of Romeo and Juliet, including some reviews of productions available on DVD, and our recap of this week's blog entries.  

Download | Duration: 00:17:16

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com , which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.