Romeo and Juliet teacher's guide - California Shakespeare Theater

ROMEO AND JULIET OVERVIEW
A NOTE TO TEACHERS
“The first and most important lesson… is that there are no rules about
how to do Shakespeare, just clues. Everything is negotiable.”
-Antony Sher and Greg Doran, Woza Shakespeare! 1996,
on training in the Royal Shakespeare Company
Welcome! We are thrilled to have you and your students join us for this season’s Student Discovery
Matinee production of Romeo and Juliet. Our goal is to engage students with the work on a variety
of levels through the live performance and the activities in this Teacher’s Guide.
The challenge with any production of Romeo and Juliet is how to make it fresh and relevant after
400 years of productions, rewritings, and new interpretations. The fact that a new film has been
made titled Romeo & Juliet vs. the Living Dead speaks to how far we’ve gone in our need to
reinvent this play. However, the work endures because it continues to speak to the tremendous
strength of our personal passions.
In the words of the director, Jonathan Moscone, Romeo and Juliet are “a youthful energy in
an ancient world.” The Cal Shakes production is set in modern Italy, in a town with Mafia-like
tendencies toward grudges and retaliation. This traps Romeo and Juliet in a culture of violence
that cannot be changed, and drives them to their tragic end. Violence is accepted and understood
as an everyday occurrence, and within these constraints there is no option for Romeo and Juliet
to be together. There is virtually no real communication in this play. Parents don’t understand
their children, and vice versa; people only command, taunt, or fight. Even Romeo and Juliet talk in
contradictions, although, unlike the rest of the characters, they use the oppositions as a point of
connection rather than divisiveness. Every character’s complexity comes from his or her interactions
with this society, and this makes them prey to the devastating effects of misunderstanding and
chance.
In our production, the director emphasizes the everyday fact of violence in this culture and how it
shapes everyone’s attitudes and actions throughout the play. The set is reminiscent of a prison and
the graffiti on the wall a splash of violence within its walls. The minimal set pieces help speed the
play through a series of settings, keeping the action tumbling forward from moment to moment,
almost never letting the characters catch their breath.
The theme of this guide is “You Just Don’t Understand.” Cue your students to look for the
misunderstandings in the play and how the world of the play creates and perpetuates them.
Enjoy!
ROMEO AND JULIET OVERVIEW
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