❤️ H E R M O S O ❤️

Tuve que esforzarme para no leer rápido y así poder disfrutar ese sabor a clásico que me encanta.

I faked my death prank *gone wrong* (not clickbait) (we died)

Well, this has always been one of my least favorite Shakespearean tragedies.

I suppose I've always felt that Shakespeare depends mostly on performance; it's not meant to be read until it's been seen at least once. And though I've seen one movie adaptation of this play as a child, I don't think I've seen quite enough to form an opinion. So instead of reading this in full, I listened on audiobook.

And you know what? I think it wasn't enough. I think I needed to see this again before listening to it. Moreover, I think this is a play generally better seen than performed. While the language is beautiful, the emotionality of this play comes primarily from seeing these two young lovers - dumb, yes, but in love - kill themselves for what they believe. When reading this, it's simply something happening, something far away and removed. When you see it - really see it, see them gasping, see them desperate and upset - it's a call to action.

Romeo and Juliet is, at its core, not a play about two lovers. It is a play about how prejudice and hate can destroy the happiness of two innocents. Reducing it to "they were stupid" is missing the point. They were stupid. But if not for the hate of their families, the feud that had been destroying their family for generations, they would have survived. Dumb, yes, but they would not have died if not for the hate of generations past.

I really don't have much else to say: the language used in this play is gorgeous, of course, but among Shakespeare's tragedies, the characters don't speak to me on quite the level others do. Yet I think this play has the potential to be fantastic if seen live with talented actors. It's a play that will chiefly depend on its performances, but I think it's a play worth seeing if you get the chance.

n  #BAZ LURHMANN MOVIE REVIEWn
Can I just say: this movie adaptation is completely wild. The cinematography is weird, and wild, and completely all over the place on purpose, as Lurhmann often does. The setting of the balcony scene is wonderful and beautifully done; I'm a huge fan of everything about the opening scene, which is so tonally odd that it sets a perfect tone for the show. I actually think the Mercutio performance in this one is my favorite; several of the other characters are just a little bit flat, although well-cast to emphasize the youth of the characters.

n  #AUDIOBOOK PERFORMANCE REVIEWn
I liked Calista Flockhart's performance; while I felt she went too breathy at parts and didn't add the proper layer of characterization underneath all the innocence, I felt her intonation conveyed her feelings quite well. Unfortunately, I felt myself hard-pressed to truly believe in Matthew Wolf's performance. His intonation spoke to me of lust, not of true love. The only moment where I genuinely loved his character was in the final poisoning scene; I was left near tears during his final monologue, the only moment I truly felt strongly during the play.

Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Youtube

I was in the staff room a couple of weeks ago. Obviously, I stand out from the other student teachers. In fact, given I’m nearly 50 and male and they are nearly 25 and female, I imagine I look like one of those incredibly sad men that react to mid-life in ways other than looking for a new career.

Anyway, one of the teachers (a retired man who works covering absent teachers and seems to be there every day) asked me what I did before becoming a student teacher and then why in God’s name I would ever want to be a teacher instead. You know, high stress, low pay, crazy kids – the list of features is nearly endless.

I told him that in my previous job I had all that too, the kids were just older (well, the pay was better too, admittedly) but the other main feature of my previous job was getting to read the same enterprise agreement over and over again for 8 years straight without remission. It was like the myth of Sisyphus without the interest of seeing the amusing ploy the Gods would come up with this time to mess things up right at the end. At least this way, I told him, I would be reading and re-reading Shakespeare, and that has got to be an improvement. Cute line, but would it hold up?

And so my new journey began right away by having to read and teach this little play to a group of 16 year olds. I’ve never studied this play before. I have read it, but I’ve learnt that to teach something ‘reading it’ once isn’t really quite enough.

I wouldn’t have said I knew everything about the play before I started teaching it, but I wasn’t quite prepared to learn some of the things about the play that I did. Take this little sonnet as a case in point. I can’t begin to tell you what finding it has done for my regard for my mate Bill.

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin in this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much
Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrim’s hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Ay, pilgrim, lips that thy must use in pray’r.
Oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do,
They pray – grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayer’s sake.
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.

Now, as you know, a sonnet is like a little song, it has 14 lines, ten syllables per line, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables and rhymes ababcdcdefefgg. But this isn’t like the sonnet that begins this play – this sonnet is hidden in the dialogue and is spoken Romeo and Juliet together built from their dialogue in an incredibly important scene in the play. It is their very first words together and the sonnet ends in their very first kiss.

How sexy is that? Imagine thinking of having your main characters’ first words together as a sonnet. God, it makes my head spin.

So, the options before me were to read yet another maternity leave clause or to read and re-read Romeo and Juliet for the next twenty years. There really wasn’t a lot of choice, was there?

dumb bitches

My first reaction when the read was over is why on earth it took me so long to read this beautiful work of Shakespeare having it physically with me all this while. Perhaps, I thought I didn't really need to read it since I know the story from the movie adaptations I have watched. How foolish! I had no idea what I had missed for so long.

I have never enjoyed Shakespearean writing as much as I did in this play. It is passionate, lyrical, and humorous. It is amazing that you find all these in a tragedy; only a great master can accomplish that feat. The story is both romantic and tragic, as we well know. But what is incredible is that the play is a "beautiful" tragedy.

This is one of the most outstanding plays that I have read. I loved it. I haven't read many Shakespearean tragedies, and in my mind, no tragedy will outmatch the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet. It certainly will be my favourite Shakespearean tragedy.

bunch of teenage who have way to much testosterone die

Huge spoilers right on the first page.

a lot of people don‘t know this but the poison they drank was actually dumb bitch juice

ROMEO AND JULIET: THE MUSICAL (A BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN PRODUCTIONS EXTRAVAGANZA)

WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:

"Bruce Springsteen mixes Shakespeare’s best known romance with electric guitars, pianos, keyboards and saxophones." (Rolling Stoned)

"Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, cars, bikes, gangs, bangs, brawls, literature, blood, sugar, death, magik, kitchen sinks, meatloaf, clowns. It’s got everythnig." (Grauniad)

"E-Street Bard." (Village Voyce)

"Star-crossed Lovers Killed by Loose Windscreen." (Notional Enquirer)

"The Boss Updates Big Willie" (The Unyun)

"Bruce Shakesteen or William Springspeare: You Decide!" (Variete)

"I Haven't Seen It. Have You Seen My Backlog of GR Notifications?" (Paul Bryant)

"Like." (Bird Brian)

"Well everybody better move over, that's all/He's running on the bad side/And he's got his back to the wall/Tenth avenue freeze-out, tenth avenue freeze-out" (Richard)

"This show sets the bar very high, almost out of reach of regular top-shelf drinking patrons." (Bruce Shakespeare, The Australian Shakespearience Dinner and Floorshow)




CHORUS:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

BRUCE:

The midnight gang's assembled
And picked a rendezvous for the night
Man there's an opera on the turnpike
There's a ballet being fought in the alley

PRINCE:

Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate.

BRUCE:

Outside the street's on fire
In a real death waltz
Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
And the poets down here
Don't write nothing at all
They just stand back and let it all be

PRINCE:

If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

BRUCE:

In the quick of the night
They reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand
But they wind up wounded
Not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland

CHORUS:

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows,
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.

Enter Romeo, still love-sick for Rosaline.

ROMEO:

Rosaline, jump a little higher
Senorita, come sit by my fire
I just want to be your lover, ain't no liar
Rosaline, you're my stone desire

MERCUTIO:

True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind.

BRUCE:

In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway Italian dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines

Romeo, still pining for Rosaline, discovers Juliet and becomes newly infatuated.

ROMEO:

Juliet, let me in, I wanna be your friend,
I want to guard your dreams and visions

Bruce realises he has competition for Juliet’s love and wants to elope without her parents’ permission.

BRUCE:

Together we could break this trap
We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back

Romeo pleads even harder, now he has learned about his rival, Bruce.

ROMEO:

I gotta know how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
Babe, I want to know if love is real
Oh, Juliet, can you show me

Juliet learns that Romeo comes from a rival family.

JULIET:

My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!

Juliet falls for Romeo regardless.

JULIET:

What ’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Juliet decides she must confront Bruce and tell him they are not meant to be.

JULIET:

Bruce, the angels have lost their desire for us
I spoke to them just last night
and they said they won't
set themselves on fire
for us anymore

Bruce persists, trying to hold onto the memory of their love.

JULIET:

I'm really sorry, Bruce
I've gotta set you loose
I know you've got a beat up old Buick
And dreams of something better for me
But, frankly, I just can't see it
My vision for me can't be achieved
In the back seat of a second hand Fiat
While your friends hang around drinking Corona

BRUCE:

You say you don't like it
But girl I know you're a liar
'Cause when we kiss
Ooooh, Fire

Juliet grows weak and almost falls.

BRUCE:

What is wrong, my love?

JULIET:

I have the worst headache.

BRUCE:

Here take some of these now, and again when you feel the pain coming on.

Bruce gives her a small glass bottle of non-prescription drugs. Blue tablets.

JULIET:

How many should I take?

BRUCE:

No more than two every four hours.

Juliet takes three tablets immediately.

JULIET:

It hurts me to say but you gotta know it
There’s no point in remaining coy
I can’t marry you, Bruce.
I could never be happy with a boy
From Long Branch, New Jersey
No amateur actor or drama queen
No busboy, bellhop or dead ringer
For De Niro or a film student from Pomona
Not for me, your guitar-slinging outlaw singer
I crave more than an Asbury Duke or an E Street Loner.

Romeo looks dashing in his open-necked shirt and film director scarf. Juliet has never seen anything like him.

The love between Romeo and Juliet grows in leaps and bounds.

JULIET:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

ROMEO:

Beneath the city two hearts beat
Soul engines running through a night so tender
In a bedroom locked
In whispers of soft refusal
And then surrender.

JULIET:

I long for a real hot-blooded man
An alpha male of the highest order
A man of another world from here
Someone from across the border

I don't just mean New Jersey
Or Philadelphia, PA
You see, I love a Prince from far Verona
With a flash suit and money to burn,
A mansion and a real fast car
A smart haircut and a leather-coated boner

He’s waiting for me now
I've got him in my view
He's the rising son
Of the House of Montague

ROMEO:

Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

CHORUS:

Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.

Juliet feels no relief for her headache. She opens the bottle and takes another two tablets. It’s only an hour since her last dose.

JULIET:

I want to be a star
Of the stage and screen
I don't want a bit part
Or a role that’s obscene

I've had enough of men who work
All week for minimum wages
I want to be remembered
Through time eternal...and for ages and ages

My love’s a director who makes serious films
Not just action flics designed to wow
Even his money men are all agreed
“Romeo, Romeo, we’re for art now”

The moment he cast his eyes on me
He sat me down and cast me on his couch
He said he’d get my photo in the magazines
And we’d drive around all night in limousines

Romeo and Juliet resolve to escape in Romeo’s car.

JULIET:

Just so I could live in this promised land
I turned my back on Bruce’s traveling band
No more Buicks or Fiats for this Capulet
Dear husband, I pledge to be your wife, Juliet
So I can feature in a film cameo
In the front seat of your Alfa, Romeo.


Tybalt chases them on a motor bike. He crosses suddenly into Romeo's path and clips the front edge of the car. He loses control of his bike and falls to the thundering road. Romeo can't avoid running over the top of Tybalt and killing him. Still, Romeo rolls his car three times while taking evasive action, and both Romeo and Juliet are knocked unconscious when their heads hit the side door panels.

ROMEO:

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead (in that order).

Juliet wakes first, only to look over to the driver’s seat, where she sees Romeo. She can’t tell if he is alive or dead. She realises that her headache has now become extreme. If she can treat her pain, she can try to help Romeo.

She touches her forehead where it hit the inside of the car door and pulls her hand away, covered in blood that still seems to be flowing profusely. Tears form in her eyes and her eyesight becomes blurry. She reaches into her purse and takes another four tablets, in the hope that it will kill her pain. She lapses into unconsciousness.

Shortly afterwards, Romeo awakes and finds Juliet still beside him. There is blood everywhere and a white froth has descended from her lips and dried on her chin.

ROMEO:

O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.

Romeo wipes the froth from her lips and gives her one last kiss. He lifts the left leg of his trousers and pulls out his knife.

ROMEO:

O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love!

Romeo drags the knife across his throat. He drops the knife and holds his hand to the artery in his neck. He continues to feel the slow, regular pumping of his heart, until it pumps no more.

Now, Juliet wakes again. Still groggy, she looks over to Romeo. Convinced by the abundance of blood that he has died, she shakes the rest of the tablets in the bottle into her hand and swallows them eagerly.

JULIET:

O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

She kisses Romeo and dies.

PRINCE:

Never was a story of more woe
Than this of Bruce, Juliet and her Romeo.

Bruce lives alone and works his day job, almost like an automaton. His only salvation is the time he spends in his beat up old Buick. Every night, he drives the streets of Verona, haunted by the love he felt for Juliet and the guilt that it was the pills he gave her that took her life. Sometimes, through the tears in his eyes, he imagines that he sees her walking down the street, only to lose sight of her as she slips quietly down an alleyway.

BRUCE:

You're still in love with all the wonder she brings
And every muscle in your body sings as the highway ignites
You work nine to five and somehow you survive till the night
Hell all day they're busting you up on the outside
But tonight you're gonna break on through to the inside
And it'll be right, it'll be right, and it'll be tonight

And you know she will be waiting there
And you'll find her somehow you swear
Somewhere tonight you run sad and free
Until all you can see is the night.


APOLOGIES:

Please don't sue me, Boss.

How can I possibly argue that your lyrics deserve to be on the same page as Shakespeare, unless I shamelessly misappropriate them in the pursuit of parody, pastiche, spoof, send-up or lampoon?

This isn't damning with faint praise. This is no piss-take. This is a full-on homage, a big hurrah, a laud almighty. I say, more kudos to the Boss!

As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon puts it (as quoted by my WikiLawyer), "parody...is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text."

I already have multiple copies of your albums on both CD and vinyl, even the boring ones. I don't need any more, until you release 50th anniversary editions with bonus disks I don't already have. [I really hope I'm still around in 2045, so I can be the first to buy "The Ghost of Tom Joad Uncut".]

If that doesn't convince you it's not worth suing me, Brucewad, I won't have any money left to support this great music industry of ours that is being killed by illegal downloads.

Please get your lawyers to spare my humble upload.

And if they do come looking for me, they'd better be pretty damned fit, coz tramps like us, baby we were born to run.

Why didn’t they just run away together? It would have saved a lot of heart ache.

The first time I read Romeo and Juliet (my freshman year of high school), I hated it. I had always heard it built up as a great love story, a great romance- and I didn't see it at all. To me, it seemed a pretty pointless story about a couple of idiotic teenagers in lust. The ridiculous essays I was forced to compose about it certainly didn't help.

My senior year of high school, however, my drama teacher selected it as our spring play. I was stage manager, and I was horrified when he told me. I pleaded for anything but R & J. But as I worked through the lines with my actors, and saw the scenes slowly put together, I came to realize the power and the beauty of the play.

Yes, they are somewhat idiotic teenagers in lust: but the sweeping passion of adolescence, with all its power and impatience, is something worth looking at in itself.

I don't know why English classes always seem to assign R & J to teenagers- I think it's a play that is actually much better appreciated by those who are past their own early adolescence. Because now, I love it.