The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

Hello all,

I thought I would start this blog on something currently topical in the RSAMD. I have been fortunate enough to get tickets to the RSC's production of Romeo and Juliet which is at the Kings theater in Glasgow. Before going to see the show I thought it might be beneficial for me to brush up on my knowledge of the famous story by watching the version that Baz Luhrmann cleverly put onto the big screen.

I had never seen this film before and I wondered how they where going to pull off using Shakespearean dialect in film based in the modern day. At first it was strange seeing people on film, that you expect to be speaking in American slang, talking as if they where in England 300 years ago but eventually I would find myself just thinking it was set in the past because of the sets they used, which I will go on to talk about later. I think the immortality of Shakespeare's writing was really challenged by this film and I believe that it did well to show that the writing is transferable to any time.

One of my favorite points on the film was the way that they used their sets. This was really interesting to me because it echoed the productions of early cinema as their intention was to make the film appear almost like a play. Sets such as outside of Juliet's house and Verona beach were used by the actors in a way that is not dissimilar from that of a play and also using a lot more wide shots than usual gives it more of an "open" feel through use of a shallow depth of field, letting the audience follow the action with their eyes, not just what the camera tells them to do. These techniques where used in early cinema mainly because the language of cinema had not yet been created and cinema was still thought of as an offshoot from theater, but it is nice to see that these old techniques can still be used for artistic effect.

I am going to see the RSC's production of this play tonight so i will let you all know what its like.