ROMEO & JULIET

Romeo & Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies, following two young people who fall in love despite a longstanding conflict between their families. The play includes romance, humor, family conflict, staged violence, death, grief, and suicide. 

Language and humor:

• Shakespearean insults, name-calling, threats, and references to fighting and death.

• Mild innuendo, primarily presented humorously.

• References to kissing, marriage, virginity, and the marriage bed in Shakespearean language.

• Religious language and references to God, heaven, hell, sin, and damnation.

Romantic themes:

• Romeo and Juliet quickly fall in love, kiss, secretly marry, and discuss spending the night together as a married couple.

• The play includes discussions of her marriage to Paris and expectations surrounding young marriage.

• Juliet’s family pressures her to marry Paris despite her refusal, including verbal threats and the threat of being cast out of her home.

• The play explores intense romantic love, secrecy, family expectations, and the conflict between romantic and familial loyalty.

Violence, death, and self-harm:

• Several staged fights and physical confrontations occur. Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris are killed during these conflicts.

• Characters threaten violence and death throughout the play, and weapons such as brooms, paint rollers, knives, and flashlights are used onstage.

• Juliet discusses suicide when faced with being forced to marry Paris. She later drinks a potion that makes her appear dead as part of a plan to escape the marriage.

• In the final scene, Romeo believes Juliet is dead, drinks poison, and dies. Juliet awakens, discovers Romeo’s body, and dies by stabbing herself with his knife.

• These deaths are central to the story. They are staged theatrically rather than presented with graphic realistic violence or gore.

Other content and themes:

• The play centers on a longstanding feud between two families and the consequences of cycles of anger, violence, and revenge.

• Characters experience significant grief following the deaths of friends and family members.

• Scenes take place in and around a family tomb, with references to bodies, burial, and decay.

• The production ultimately portrays the deaths of Romeo and Juliet as tragic consequences of the conflict surrounding them, leading their families to confront the harm caused by their feud.