The first scene I chose was shortened and adapted from Act 1 Scene 1. The setting of this scene was located among the Verona Streets. The two Capulet members, Gregory and Sampson entered the scene with weapons and started showing discrimination against the Montague family. In my performance, the Capulets were in black and white costumes, while the Montague was in green clothing, so the audience are able to recognize the difference between the two families. Next, one of the Montague member, Abram came in and began arguing with the two Capulets. It ended up with a fight. Abram died from the Capulet's blades. In the original play, there isn't any instruction that shows Abram died during the fight. So his death is one of the adaptations in our performance - in order to show the overflowing rage. Another significant adaptation is that the fight stopped right after the two Capulet stabbed Abram. So the later scene in which the prince conciliates the fight disappeared. Every adaptations that we did was with the purpose of maximizing the expression of their feud. There are a good amount of lines that are straight clues of the insolvable conflict between the characters. In the beginning of the scene. Gregory and Sampson started the conversation in this way:" I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw."(Act 1 Scene 1, line 3) So their obvious willingness of fighting is shown right at the beginning. Also, the line by Sampson:"A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall of any man of or maid of Montague's"(Act 1 Scene 1, line 12-13) is another perfect example of their discrimination to the Montague. The analogy of Montague members to the dog shows their attitude toward the other family. Followed by those provoking judgments, Abram responded to the "thumb biting" action of Sampson. " Do you bite your thumb at us sir?" (Act 1 Scene 1, line 45) Noticing that Abram here used the term "us" instead of "me", there were supposed to have more than one Montague members, but we decided to cut other characters except Abram, so the Capulet were able to overpopulate and then kill him. And finally, after the line"Draw if you be man"(Act 1 Scene 1 line 63), Abram died under Sampson's sword. This first scene might looks non-related to the two lovers - Romeo and Juliet, but it actually plays an important role of setting up the background and establishing the tone for the entire play. This fight is only the beginning, performing the beginning part efficiently shows how the feud covers the entire play. Shakespeare really made an effort to introduce the story background at the beginning. As I mentioned above, Romeo and Juliet weren't able to be together because the opposing family relationship. The fightings make people ruthless and blind. During the prince's speech, he expresses that:"If ever you disturb our streets again, Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace ."(Act 1 Scene 1 line 98-99). This line becomes a metaphor for the later incidents. The idea is always: No matter how deep Romeo and Juliet's love is, the feud is always going to cause a dead end in this story. The end is already settled at the beginning, a really complicated and vague connection.
The next scene was originated from Act 1 Scene 5, it was picked under a tough discussion. The scene took place in the feast held by the Capulet. In this scene, Romeo first met his "true love"- Juliet and everything started at that point. However, one of the main character - Juliet did not appear in this scene in my performance, because it was adapted to show Tybalt's discrimination to Romeo. In our performance, the scene started with the entering of Romeo to the party After a relatively short monologue, Tybalt appeared and began pouring vicious words to the young man behind his back. Following that is the conversation between Tybalt and his uncle - Capulet, the head of family. At the end, Tybalt leaves with unsatisfied and envious emotions. In Romeo's monologue, he just simply praised the girl and expressed his overflowing love. "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night"(Act 1 Scene 5, line 51-52). His personalities cause a lot of troubles for him, including taking risk to go to enemy's banquet without invitation. What happened next is another foreshadow of the later fight. Our performance erased everything before Romeo's monologue to directly show this close connection to the next scene. When Tybalt noticed Romeo's appearance, the fury blinds his eyes, my performance kept all his lines. "Come hither covered with an antic face to fleer and scorn at our solemnity ? Now, by the stock and honor of my kin, To strike him dead I hold it not a sin."(Act 1 Scene 5, line 64-67), this line clearly indicates Tybalt's willingness to fight Romeo. The relationship between Romeo and Tybalt has been always the biggest person-to-person conflict in the play, their destinies are binding together, only one can survive. From the scene, we can tell that Tybalt's personalities are extremely different from Romeo's. Romeo is a young man that put too much focus on his love, his language is poetic and gentle. On the other hand, Tybalt is the representative of hatred. He just doesn't care, takes whatever he needs to slain his enemy. By performing Act 1 Scene 5, I not only established a straight link between this scene and Act 3 Scene 1, but also indicates how much trouble Tybalt will bring to Romeo and change him. Under the pressure, Romeo finally changed and revealed the dark side of him which will be shown in the next scene.
In my point of view, Romeo is neither a virtuous nor peaceable young man. He is kind of a unstable and tragic protagonist. At the beginning of the play, he's language brings readers an impression of innocent character, the young man is so overwhelmed by his love and life, that he is not possibly able to commit such murder in the later scene. However, showing the drastic change of Romeo is exactly my goal in the last scene, the extraction of Act 3 Scene 1. The scene begins with the dialogue between Mercutio and Benvolio. These two characters have really different personalities: Mercutio is an emotional young man, and he loves to fight. "thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts."(Act 3 Scene 1 line 18-20) These lines perfectly demonstrate Mercutio's personalities; Although he uses the word "thou", he is still talking about himself, how he will not tolerate others. On the other hand, Benvolio is more like a peacemaker, the first sentence "I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire."(Act 3 Scene 1 line 1) straightly expresses his stand in the play. Benvolio is just not a representative of hatred, that's why we cut his line later in the scene. Again, in order to fully show the perspective of feud, a lot of adaptations needed to be established and utilized well. With the entering of Romeo, Tybalt was totally provoked, he started to arguing with Benvolio and finally started fighting with him. At that moment, Romeo was still being himself, an innocent, peaceful young man, my performance highlighted this whole line, "I do protest I never injured thee But love thee better than thou canst devise Till thou shalt know the reason of my love. And so, good Capulet, which name I tender as dearly as mine own, be satisfied."(Act 3 Scene 1 line 69-73)by letting Romeo standing alone while speaking. Our group believes it's the best example of Romeo's original characteristic. Next, he was still being that part of himself during the fight, "Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up."(Act 3 Scene 1 line 85), trying to break down the fight, but that was the last moment of him being calm. My performance strongly focused on the scene when Romeo was talking to the dying Mercutio. The audience will have a deeper understanding of Romeo's change, from the hatred. Anger and sadness are the types of extremely strong emotions, they can really change a person, especially to someone like Romeo, young and vulnerable. With the effect from anger, he became a killer. At the end of the scene, he challenged Tybalt, and slashed the enemy that took away his best friend from him. It doesn't matter whether the murder is right or wrong, the impact to him was substantial. The action of killing someone brings huge panic to him, and makes the later murder of Count Paris seems not that surprising. Again, this scene exists as a demonstration of how the feud changes Romeo, affects his later relationship, and led to the final tragedy.
Romeo and Juliet is just an fabulous, irreplaceable existance in English literature history. The complication of teenage love makes readers think about the process and cause of the storyline. The hatred between Montague and Capulet is just an outstanding factor which affects not only the lovers but the love itself. My group has been always trying to achieve the goal of showing the feud. The adaptations in the performance such as distinctive costume and killing provides the audience a strong sense of hostility. This atmosphere is what makes the performance colorful and fluent. The selection of language shows the essance of the hatred theme, such as the discrimination from Tybalt to Romeo. Tybalt's effect on Romeo totally makes him a different person, the anger blinds his eyes so he became more arbitrary. In the end, the hatred's effect ripped through the lovers' heart and just left nothing behind.
