Soliquy on Shakespeare.

A plague 'o both your houses!

Shakespeare. Who hangs like the executor's axe over all of English literature ~ or shines like a beckoning beacon to be hastened toward amidst the flotsam in between ~ depending on your point of view of course.



Now I like Shakespeare. I appreciate him. What's not to like about a man who invented a character like Falstaff ~ whom I have not introduced Ditz too! I'm over the fart jokes. I am particularly fond of the Merchant of Venice [how does one extract an ounce of flesh ~ & nothing else?!], the Taming of the Shrew [my particular favourite], Macbeth & King Lear. Hamlet, I confess, drives me crazy. The lad had a nasty mind, but the play that has me howling in the wilderness & laughing till I weep hysterically is Romeo & Juliet.



Yeah, I hear you. I know, I know; I'm a very twisted individual. But seriously; how can you not laugh at this play? You do remember being a teenager, don't you? The angst. The unrequited loves. The passion. Being so misunderstood all round. See, that's what I see. It's what I saw first time round when I saw Franco Zeffirelli's version with that quite lovely theme song. We were doing this play for Senior English & honestly, I was about a cot case by the time this film was done.



I actually really like what Baz Luhrmann did with this play, despite Leonardo Dicaprio. It is grittier, edgier, & I think brings out the insane teen thing much, much better. No, I don't think the teens are certifiable, just as hormonally unbalanced as any other teen.



See that's the thing. Not many adults are going to go round behaving in the lunatic ways that Romeo & Juliet do. Forbidden love? How exciting is that? Makes you feel all grown up & daring. Sneaking out at night, getting all warm & tingly under the stars. The blood hums ~ or so I'm told. I wasn't one of the ones sneaking out to meet boyfriends in the dead of night but I heard all about it come Monday morning before class began ~ & I went to a good church school too! No wonder I'm so cynical. I confess, I'm still 'mazed at what some of my peers did without batting an eyelid ~ & thought themselves very mature & grown up with it too!



It just gallops from there. Ever watched teen boys facing off? Uh~huh. I think Shakespeare was wickedly clever but you can't possibly take this play seriously. Ironic? Satirical? Oh, yes, indeed! The whole thing from beginning to end is a teen madhouse ~ illogical, unreasonable, completely daft! All that over the top passion; the extravagant declarations of love ~ & absolutely no thought for how they are going to live day to day, on what or where! Life sure comes to earth with a bump when the tummy rumbles.



And that ending! Now I went to an all girls school & I saw this for the first time when I was 16 so I saw it with a bunch of 16/17 year old girls who all thought it highly romantic. By the time we got to "Never was a story of more woe/Than Juliet & her Romeo", most of them had worked their way through a whole box of tissues & had tears streaming unashamedly down their cheeks. The auditorium was full of muffled sobbing. My tissues were halfway down my throat to prevent me from whooping with unrestrained glee. I thought then, & think now, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen & I do not understand why people take this particular play so seriously. Treat it as a tragedy. I think you could make a good case for its being a morality play but tragedy? Phuleese! This is teen angst at it's most extreme & it's only teens who don't find that funny. Most of us grow up & get over ourselves. Most of us grow up & wince a little about that over serious wide~eyed teen we used to be who took life so seriously. It certainly took a teen brain to come up with the brilliant idea of faking their death & only another teen brain could come to the conclusion that the only correct response to that was to kill oneself! Yep. Complete lunacy all round.



I'm pretty certain Shakespeare wrote this tongue in cheek. He had a wicked sense of humour & he certainly never took himself over seriously. What is sad is that there are people out there, mostly teens, who seem to think this sort of behaviour makes them both romantic & tragic & actually behave like this! Some even die. That is a tragedy. The play is not.