1 00:00:29,309 --> 00:00:32,972 What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, so stumblest on my council? 2 00:00:33,313 --> 00:00:34,974 By a name... 3 00:00:35,649 --> 00:00:37,981 I know not how to tell thee who I am. 4 00:00:38,652 --> 00:00:40,552 My name, dear saint... 5 00:00:40,654 --> 00:00:43,646 is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee. 6 00:00:43,990 --> 00:00:46,322 Had I it written, I would tear the word. 7 00:00:46,660 --> 00:00:50,323 My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words of thy tongue's uttering... 8 00:00:50,664 --> 00:00:52,996 and yet I know the sound. 9 00:00:53,667 --> 00:00:58,001 Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague? 10 00:00:58,338 --> 00:01:00,602 Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike. 11 00:01:03,276 --> 00:01:07,940 Romeo and Juliet is the story of the agony and ecstasy of young love. 12 00:01:08,281 --> 00:01:11,842 Two teenagers who struggle desperately, but in vain... 13 00:01:11,952 --> 00:01:15,945 to come together despite the hatred of their families for each other... 14 00:01:16,289 --> 00:01:19,281 and the dead weight of authority set against them. 15 00:01:19,626 --> 00:01:22,857 The play was first staged in 1595... 16 00:01:22,963 --> 00:01:25,295 a period of freedom for the young dramatist... 17 00:01:25,632 --> 00:01:27,293 that would vanish in later years... 18 00:01:27,634 --> 00:01:30,296 following the execution of his friend the Earl of Essex... 19 00:01:30,637 --> 00:01:32,628 and never return. 20 00:01:32,973 --> 00:01:35,874 Shakespeare, like Romeo and Juliet... 21 00:01:35,976 --> 00:01:38,308 discovered that passion could be dangerous... 22 00:01:38,478 --> 00:01:41,140 and moved on into even darker waters. 23 00:01:41,815 --> 00:01:45,148 What deep chords has Shakespeare sounded in the human mind... 24 00:01:45,485 --> 00:01:48,716 that transform the story of two infatuated teenagers... 25 00:01:48,822 --> 00:01:53,156 into such a popular and enduring play? 26 00:01:53,493 --> 00:01:57,486 Yond light is not daylight; I know it, I. 27 00:01:58,165 --> 00:02:00,759 It is some meteor that the sun exhaled... 28 00:02:01,101 --> 00:02:04,093 to be to thee this night a torchbearer... 29 00:02:04,438 --> 00:02:07,100 and light the on thy way to Mantua. 30 00:02:07,774 --> 00:02:11,437 Therefore stay yet. Thou needst not to be gone. 31 00:02:11,778 --> 00:02:18,115 It's a sort of quintessence of everybody's ideal moment of first love. 32 00:02:18,285 --> 00:02:21,277 I think it's absolutely as personal as that. 33 00:02:22,289 --> 00:02:27,283 This kind of immediacy, faint absurdity... 34 00:02:27,627 --> 00:02:31,620 of utter, total head over heels commitment. 35 00:02:32,299 --> 00:02:34,961 And we are, I think, early in the play... 36 00:02:35,135 --> 00:02:38,468 invited to smile at their extraordinary... 37 00:02:40,807 --> 00:02:46,143 their absolute belief that this is it for all time. 38 00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:49,472 I think "Romeo and Juliet" has always been a popular play... 39 00:02:50,150 --> 00:02:52,141 partly because it's about love... 40 00:02:52,486 --> 00:02:55,148 and then it's two young people in love. 41 00:02:55,489 --> 00:02:59,152 And then on top of that it's the opposition of their parents... 42 00:02:59,826 --> 00:03:02,090 and it has an ending that's sad... 43 00:03:02,429 --> 00:03:05,762 but mightjust have been happy, only things go wrong. 44 00:03:05,932 --> 00:03:07,832 And I think that combination... 45 00:03:07,934 --> 00:03:12,928 which would be true to a lot of plots of all sorts of popular stories... 46 00:03:13,273 --> 00:03:15,605 is the basic appeal of the thing. 47 00:03:17,277 --> 00:03:20,610 Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay'... 48 00:03:21,281 --> 00:03:23,272 and I will take thy word. 49 00:03:23,617 --> 00:03:27,610 Yet if thou swear'st thou may prove false. 50 00:03:28,622 --> 00:03:31,284 At lovers' perjuries, they say, Jove laughs. 51 00:03:33,293 --> 00:03:35,625 O gentle Romeo... 52 00:03:35,962 --> 00:03:39,295 If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully; 53 00:03:40,300 --> 00:03:43,633 Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown, and be perverse... 54 00:03:43,970 --> 00:03:45,870 and say thee nay, so thou wilt woo... 55 00:03:45,972 --> 00:03:48,202 Shakespeare doesn't write many prologues... 56 00:03:48,308 --> 00:03:50,208 but he does here in "Romeo and Juliet". 57 00:03:50,310 --> 00:03:54,542 The fearful passage of their "death-marked-love". 58 00:03:54,648 --> 00:03:57,879 Those syllables are very, very strongly accented in that line. 59 00:03:57,984 --> 00:04:00,919 We know that the play is heading for the tomb... 60 00:04:01,254 --> 00:04:03,245 but then we all are. 61 00:04:03,423 --> 00:04:08,759 So there is a kind of quintessential, archetypal... 62 00:04:09,763 --> 00:04:15,759 intensity about the play that I think makes popular. It's accessible. 63 00:04:16,436 --> 00:04:20,770 It's night. Lovers thoughts are filled with wild imaginings. 64 00:04:21,775 --> 00:04:25,108 The encounter of Romeo and Juliet at Juliet's balcony... 65 00:04:25,445 --> 00:04:28,437 is a transforming experience, a revelation... 66 00:04:28,782 --> 00:04:32,775 that most of us experience perhaps only once, or twice, in our lives. 67 00:04:33,119 --> 00:04:35,349 For many, this scene... 68 00:04:35,455 --> 00:04:38,686 arguably the most famous in all of Shakespeare's works... 69 00:04:38,792 --> 00:04:41,693 contains the heart and core of the play. 70 00:04:41,795 --> 00:04:46,357 It touches upon the central questions: what engenders love and hate... 71 00:04:46,466 --> 00:04:50,129 driving the bearers of those emotions to such extremes of action. 72 00:04:51,638 --> 00:04:55,301 It is my lady, O, it is my love. 73 00:04:55,976 --> 00:04:58,308 O that she knew she were! 74 00:04:59,312 --> 00:05:01,906 She speaks, yet she says nothing. 75 00:05:02,582 --> 00:05:04,914 'Tis not to me she speaks. 76 00:05:06,586 --> 00:05:08,918 Two of the fairest stars in all heaven... 77 00:05:09,255 --> 00:05:10,916 having some business... 78 00:05:11,257 --> 00:05:14,249 do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. 79 00:05:15,261 --> 00:05:18,822 I think the balcony scene is notjust the most famous scene in the play. 80 00:05:18,932 --> 00:05:22,265 If you say to somebody; "What's your image of'Romeo and Juliet'?" 81 00:05:22,602 --> 00:05:24,832 They usually think of a balcony with the two lovers. 82 00:05:24,938 --> 00:05:27,270 That's what's on the cigar labels after all. 83 00:05:27,941 --> 00:05:31,843 But the balcony scene is the scene which is a point of change... 84 00:05:31,945 --> 00:05:34,277 for the two people we are most interested in... 85 00:05:34,614 --> 00:05:39,278 and it has a very interesting shape to it. 86 00:05:39,619 --> 00:05:42,179 Romeo and Juliet both begin... 87 00:05:42,288 --> 00:05:47,954 very tentative and she in particular, becomes clearer and clearer... 88 00:05:48,294 --> 00:05:50,956 about declaring herself in the course of the scene. 89 00:05:51,297 --> 00:05:56,200 The balcony scene is of course the central scene of the play... 90 00:05:56,302 --> 00:05:59,294 the heart of the play, yes I do think it is. 91 00:05:59,639 --> 00:06:03,473 The lovers only really meet five times in the play anyway. 92 00:06:03,576 --> 00:06:08,138 The Capulet party scene, the balcony scene itself... 93 00:06:08,248 --> 00:06:10,478 the little scene at Lawrence's cell... 94 00:06:10,583 --> 00:06:14,815 the dawn parting and the final meeting... 95 00:06:14,921 --> 00:06:18,584 not quite simultaneous, in the tomb. 96 00:06:19,426 --> 00:06:24,329 But, yes the fervor, the commitment... 97 00:06:24,431 --> 00:06:30,995 the romanticism which we're also allowed to smile at... 98 00:06:31,104 --> 00:06:34,665 is the distillation of the mood of the play... 99 00:06:34,774 --> 00:06:37,106 in the balcony scene itself, I think. 100 00:06:37,444 --> 00:06:40,106 O Romeo, Romeo... 101 00:06:40,780 --> 00:06:43,112 wherefore art thou Romeo? 102 00:06:43,783 --> 00:06:47,776 Deny thy father and refuse thy name... 103 00:06:48,788 --> 00:06:50,449 or if thou wilt not... 104 00:06:50,790 --> 00:06:54,453 be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet. 105 00:06:55,462 --> 00:06:58,693 Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? 106 00:06:58,798 --> 00:07:01,062 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. 107 00:07:01,234 --> 00:07:04,897 Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. 108 00:07:05,739 --> 00:07:09,402 What's a Montague? It is not hand, nor foot... 109 00:07:09,576 --> 00:07:13,239 nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. 110 00:07:14,247 --> 00:07:16,909 O, be some other name! 111 00:07:17,250 --> 00:07:19,241 What's in a name? 112 00:07:19,586 --> 00:07:21,486 That which we call a rose... 113 00:07:21,588 --> 00:07:24,250 ny any other word would smell as sweet. 114 00:07:25,258 --> 00:07:29,160 So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called... 115 00:07:29,262 --> 00:07:33,255 retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. 116 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,932 Juliet's marvelous practicality... 117 00:07:36,269 --> 00:07:40,933 and Romeo's, I suppose, utterly sincere... 118 00:07:41,608 --> 00:07:43,940 romantic absurdity in the scene... 119 00:07:44,611 --> 00:07:46,602 is tremendously enjoyable, I think. 120 00:07:46,946 --> 00:07:50,939 "The orchard walls are high and hard to climb." 121 00:07:51,284 --> 00:07:55,186 "With love's light wings id I o'erperch these walls." 122 00:07:55,288 --> 00:07:57,518 Again, there's a lovely acting choice there. 123 00:07:57,624 --> 00:08:01,219 Is he slightly tongue-in-cheek as he comes back... 124 00:08:01,561 --> 00:08:03,222 with all these high romantic answers... 125 00:08:03,396 --> 00:08:09,392 or is he wonderfully youthfully naive with all these high romantic answers. 126 00:08:12,238 --> 00:08:15,901 How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? 127 00:08:16,910 --> 00:08:19,470 The orchard walls are high and hard to climb... 128 00:08:19,579 --> 00:08:21,809 and the place death, considering who thou art... 129 00:08:21,915 --> 00:08:24,577 if any of my kinsmen find thee here. 130 00:08:25,251 --> 00:08:28,482 With love's light wings I o'erperch these walls... 131 00:08:28,588 --> 00:08:30,920 for stony limits cannot hold love out... 132 00:08:31,257 --> 00:08:33,919 and what love can do, that dares love attempt. 133 00:08:34,260 --> 00:08:36,592 Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me. 134 00:08:36,930 --> 00:08:38,830 If they do see thee... 135 00:08:38,932 --> 00:08:41,264 they will murder thee. 136 00:08:42,268 --> 00:08:48,264 Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords. 137 00:08:49,108 --> 00:08:53,442 Look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity. 138 00:08:53,947 --> 00:08:56,939 "My kinsmen will kill thee if they find thee here"... 139 00:08:57,283 --> 00:09:01,549 "Alas, there lies more peril in thine eyes" he says to her. 140 00:09:03,223 --> 00:09:08,217 They're wonderfully set off against each other, I think. 141 00:09:08,561 --> 00:09:10,893 Of course when she lets go... 142 00:09:11,231 --> 00:09:13,131 with romantic commitment... 143 00:09:13,233 --> 00:09:15,565 itjust wipes him off the board. 144 00:09:15,902 --> 00:09:21,238 "My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep. 145 00:09:21,407 --> 00:09:26,401 The more I give to thee The more I have, for both are infinite." 146 00:09:26,579 --> 00:09:30,572 What a wonderful sentence. What a wonderful sentence. 147 00:09:32,752 --> 00:09:37,086 Yep, the core and heart of the play, surely, surely. 148 00:09:37,757 --> 00:09:40,419 O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? 149 00:09:42,428 --> 00:09:45,761 What satisfaction canst thou have tonight? 150 00:09:51,104 --> 00:09:54,437 Th'exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine. 151 00:09:55,108 --> 00:09:57,770 I gave thee mine before thou didst request it... 152 00:09:58,111 --> 00:10:02,775 and yet I would it were to give again. 153 00:10:03,783 --> 00:10:07,014 Wouldst thou with draw it? For what purpose, love? 154 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:09,782 But to be frank and give it thee again. 155 00:10:10,123 --> 00:10:13,115 And yet I wish but for the thing I have. 156 00:10:14,127 --> 00:10:18,791 My bounty is boundless as the sea, my love as deep. 157 00:10:19,132 --> 00:10:23,466 The more I give to thee the more I have, for both are infinite. 158 00:10:23,636 --> 00:10:26,628 Juliet is only just on the threshold of womanhood... 159 00:10:26,973 --> 00:10:30,204 a vulnerable child-like angel, wooed by a teenager... 160 00:10:30,310 --> 00:10:33,211 who is completely defenseless against the onslaught of emotions... 161 00:10:33,313 --> 00:10:35,873 he has never experienced until now. 162 00:10:35,982 --> 00:10:38,314 But should such unfettered emotions... 163 00:10:38,651 --> 00:10:40,642 combined with such youthfulness... 164 00:10:40,987 --> 00:10:43,979 simply be accepted without a second thought? 165 00:10:44,324 --> 00:10:49,227 Has Shakespeare issued a challenge and made us ask ourselves... 166 00:10:49,329 --> 00:10:53,322 should we feel uncomfortable at the extreme youth of the lovers? 167 00:10:53,666 --> 00:10:56,999 I think that this is a question whose relevance today is indisputable... 168 00:10:57,337 --> 00:10:59,999 and one which we must confront. 169 00:11:00,340 --> 00:11:02,831 Modern audiences should certainly feel uncomfortable... 170 00:11:02,942 --> 00:11:08,175 at the extreme youth of Juliet and so should Elizabethan audiences. 171 00:11:08,281 --> 00:11:11,944 If anybody tells you that 14 was a normal marriage age... 172 00:11:12,285 --> 00:11:15,846 in Shakespeare's England, don't believe them. 173 00:11:15,955 --> 00:11:20,517 Average marriage ages for women were 18/19 at the time this play was written. 174 00:11:20,626 --> 00:11:23,288 O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris... 175 00:11:23,629 --> 00:11:25,620 from off the battlements of any tower... 176 00:11:25,965 --> 00:11:27,956 or walk in thievish ways... 177 00:11:28,301 --> 00:11:30,292 or bid me lurk where serpents are. 178 00:11:30,636 --> 00:11:35,630 Or bid me go into a new-made grave and hide me with a dead man in his tomb. 179 00:11:35,975 --> 00:11:38,967 Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble... 180 00:11:39,312 --> 00:11:41,872 and I will do it without fear or doubt... 181 00:11:41,981 --> 00:11:44,973 to live an unstained wife to my sweet love. 182 00:11:45,318 --> 00:11:48,879 Shakespeare wants the youthful commitment... 183 00:11:48,988 --> 00:11:55,985 the first love feeling from this play. He also wants pure sacrifices. 184 00:11:56,662 --> 00:12:00,223 These two utterly innocent young people... 185 00:12:00,333 --> 00:12:07,262 are the victims of their parents boring strife and wickedness. 186 00:12:07,607 --> 00:12:11,270 And sacrifices have to be pure. 187 00:12:11,944 --> 00:12:14,174 It's a long religious tradition... 188 00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:18,273 and Shakespeare wants that and makes certain that he gets it. 189 00:12:18,451 --> 00:12:20,180 But I think it's important, first of all... 190 00:12:20,286 --> 00:12:23,278 that they're young and impetuous and not yet experienced... 191 00:12:23,456 --> 00:12:26,118 and therefore only discovering how to deal with something... 192 00:12:26,959 --> 00:12:29,951 that neither of them really knew about before. 193 00:12:30,129 --> 00:12:33,690 So you've got that sort of awkwardness that seems very real. 194 00:12:33,800 --> 00:12:38,362 Although the word 'teenagers' has recently been invented... 195 00:12:38,471 --> 00:12:40,803 it looks like this is the Elizabethan equivalent of'teenagers'... 196 00:12:41,140 --> 00:12:44,041 in the sense of trying to work out how they are themselves... 197 00:12:44,143 --> 00:12:46,703 in relation to what people think they ought to do. 198 00:12:46,813 --> 00:12:50,476 And then as their relationship progresses very rapidly... 199 00:12:50,817 --> 00:12:55,049 to a marriage which they ascent to... 200 00:12:55,154 --> 00:12:57,714 they are given the benefit of clergy in that respect... 201 00:12:57,824 --> 00:13:01,419 and then to their first night together and we see the aftermath of that. 202 00:13:02,428 --> 00:13:04,328 It's as though... 203 00:13:04,430 --> 00:13:08,332 the whole of sexual maturing and experiencing and understanding... 204 00:13:08,434 --> 00:13:13,428 has been put on a kind of roller coaster. It's much too fast... 205 00:13:14,107 --> 00:13:16,098 and that's both exciting and slightly appalling... 206 00:13:16,442 --> 00:13:19,434 and the fact that the people are young adds to that. 207 00:13:22,615 --> 00:13:24,606 Wilt thou be gone? 208 00:13:25,618 --> 00:13:29,850 It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark... 209 00:13:29,956 --> 00:13:32,618 that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear. 210 00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:36,952 Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree. 211 00:13:37,630 --> 00:13:41,293 Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. 212 00:13:45,138 --> 00:13:48,801 It was the lark, the herald of the morn; 213 00:13:48,975 --> 00:13:50,966 No nightingale. 214 00:13:51,978 --> 00:13:53,969 Look, love... 215 00:13:54,647 --> 00:13:59,983 what envious streaks do lace the severing sky in yonder East. 216 00:14:00,586 --> 00:14:02,816 'The good die young' is a phrase that Shakespeare... 217 00:14:02,922 --> 00:14:06,585 may well have had in mind when plotting the demise of Mercutio. 218 00:14:06,926 --> 00:14:08,484 And how well he knew the effect... 219 00:14:08,594 --> 00:14:11,927 of the merciless and senseless destruction of young life. 220 00:14:13,266 --> 00:14:15,257 Mercutio the lover of life... 221 00:14:15,601 --> 00:14:17,933 confidant, loved and admired... 222 00:14:18,104 --> 00:14:21,437 clever Mercutio, the philosopher, cut down, because... 223 00:14:21,941 --> 00:14:25,604 ironically Romeo wanted to prevent him being killed. 224 00:14:26,112 --> 00:14:30,776 What then is the effect of Mercutio's murder on the play's action? 225 00:14:32,118 --> 00:14:34,109 Good Mercutio! 226 00:14:39,125 --> 00:14:40,786 Away Tybalt! 227 00:14:41,127 --> 00:14:43,118 With the death... 228 00:14:43,462 --> 00:14:47,125 that is brutal, accidental, messy... 229 00:14:48,467 --> 00:14:50,799 a sort of shuddering... 230 00:14:51,804 --> 00:14:53,795 surprise in the play. 231 00:14:54,140 --> 00:14:57,132 The play has looked forward from its prologue... 232 00:14:57,476 --> 00:14:59,467 to the death of the lovers in the tomb. 233 00:14:59,812 --> 00:15:01,973 We're expecting that, that's part... 234 00:15:02,081 --> 00:15:06,415 of the satisfaction, of expectation in the play. 235 00:15:08,087 --> 00:15:12,080 But the death of Mercutio is a horrible shock. 236 00:15:14,427 --> 00:15:17,089 - Art thou hurt? - Ay, ay... 237 00:15:17,430 --> 00:15:20,092 a scratch, a scratch; 238 00:15:21,100 --> 00:15:24,433 - 'tis enough. - Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much. 239 00:15:24,770 --> 00:15:27,102 No, 'tis not so deep as a well... 240 00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:29,772 nor so wide as a church door... 241 00:15:30,776 --> 00:15:33,768 but 'tis enough. 'Twill serve. 242 00:15:35,448 --> 00:15:40,010 Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. 243 00:15:40,119 --> 00:15:42,110 Course he's very bawdy as well, Mercutio. 244 00:15:42,288 --> 00:15:45,621 He can't even tell the time without making a bawdy joke. 245 00:15:45,791 --> 00:15:50,785 You remember where the hand of the dial is when the clock reaches noon. 246 00:15:52,131 --> 00:15:56,795 So all of those things are tremendously attractive in the part. 247 00:15:56,969 --> 00:16:00,905 He gets the superb set speech about Queen Map... 248 00:16:01,073 --> 00:16:04,406 which is powered by a kind of... 249 00:16:04,577 --> 00:16:09,571 imaginative energy that one doesn't find anywhere else in the play, I think. 250 00:16:10,249 --> 00:16:12,911 And also he gets... 251 00:16:13,586 --> 00:16:18,250 one of the best death lines puns in all drama, doesn't he? 252 00:16:18,591 --> 00:16:22,254 "Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man". 253 00:16:22,928 --> 00:16:25,920 What a way to go! What a way to go! 254 00:16:26,432 --> 00:16:30,095 Romeo thinks it's all for the best when he tries to stop the fight... 255 00:16:30,436 --> 00:16:34,668 and he's the direct cause of the fight going wrong and Mercutio being killed. 256 00:16:34,774 --> 00:16:39,108 And then when he turns on Tybalt, he's in an absolute fury. 257 00:16:39,779 --> 00:16:42,111 Very often on stage that's played very savagely... 258 00:16:42,281 --> 00:16:44,272 because Romeo is beside himself. 259 00:17:07,073 --> 00:17:08,734 Now, Tybalt... 260 00:17:09,075 --> 00:17:12,067 take the 'villain' back again That late thou gavest me. 261 00:17:13,079 --> 00:17:16,071 For Mercutio's soul is but a little way above our heads... 262 00:17:16,749 --> 00:17:19,741 staying for thine to keep him company. 263 00:17:20,419 --> 00:17:23,081 Either thou or I, or both, must go with him. 264 00:17:36,936 --> 00:17:39,496 One of the particularly attractive things about Romeo... 265 00:17:39,605 --> 00:17:42,938 is that he turns himself into a complete prat sometimes. 266 00:17:43,609 --> 00:17:47,841 When he's in an agony of despair and he's lying on the ground... 267 00:17:47,947 --> 00:17:50,177 weeping and wailing and failing and... 268 00:17:50,282 --> 00:17:52,182 I've seen performances of that where you just think... 269 00:17:52,284 --> 00:17:56,277 the Friar really ought tojust slap him and tell him to pull himself together. 270 00:17:56,455 --> 00:17:59,015 The Friar says so but doesn't actually use the violence. 271 00:17:59,125 --> 00:18:01,958 And then the nurse comes in and then you get a sense that... 272 00:18:02,061 --> 00:18:05,394 everything is falling below a level of tragic dignity... 273 00:18:05,731 --> 00:18:08,632 - and I think that's very good. - Without the Friar's intervention... 274 00:18:08,734 --> 00:18:12,067 Romeo and Juliet would probably have been miserably alive... 275 00:18:12,405 --> 00:18:14,737 instead of immortalized in death. 276 00:18:15,408 --> 00:18:17,740 Should he have attempted to play God? 277 00:18:18,411 --> 00:18:21,642 I know that as an actor I was made painfully aware by Shakespeare... 278 00:18:21,747 --> 00:18:26,411 of the dilemma he poses even more powerfully in later plays. 279 00:18:26,752 --> 00:18:28,310 Should the Friar have followed his conscience... 280 00:18:28,421 --> 00:18:30,412 as I think we all would have done? 281 00:18:30,756 --> 00:18:34,419 Or should he keep within the rules of the society he administers to? 282 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:37,422 And let events take their own course? 283 00:18:37,763 --> 00:18:40,425 His role is pivotal in the action: 284 00:18:40,766 --> 00:18:43,758 is he the moral center of the play? 285 00:18:44,437 --> 00:18:47,429 Get thee to thy love, as was decreed. 286 00:18:49,108 --> 00:18:51,099 Ascend her chamber; 287 00:18:51,777 --> 00:18:54,109 hence and comfort her. 288 00:18:55,114 --> 00:18:57,776 But look thou not stay not till the watch be set... 289 00:18:58,451 --> 00:19:01,716 for then thou canst not pass to Mantua, where thou shalt live... 290 00:19:02,054 --> 00:19:05,615 till we can find a time to blaze your marriage... 291 00:19:05,724 --> 00:19:07,715 reconcile your friends... 292 00:19:08,394 --> 00:19:11,295 beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back... 293 00:19:11,397 --> 00:19:14,059 with twenty hundred thousand times morejoy... 294 00:19:14,733 --> 00:19:17,395 than thou wen'st forth in lamentation. 295 00:19:18,237 --> 00:19:20,137 Two ways of playing the Friar: 296 00:19:20,239 --> 00:19:22,571 a well-meaning... 297 00:19:24,577 --> 00:19:26,909 fussy old bungler... 298 00:19:27,246 --> 00:19:30,477 or somebody serious and gritty... 299 00:19:30,583 --> 00:19:33,143 who genuinely does want to do something... 300 00:19:33,252 --> 00:19:36,483 to resolve the situation which is destroying Verona: 301 00:19:36,589 --> 00:19:41,151 the family feud. This marriage might, he thinks... 302 00:19:41,260 --> 00:19:45,492 bring the households closer to pure love. 303 00:19:45,598 --> 00:19:50,262 So do I, I myself incline to the second reading of the part... 304 00:19:50,436 --> 00:19:54,429 but you can see the first version well played in all sorts... 305 00:19:54,607 --> 00:19:57,599 of stagings of the play. 306 00:19:57,943 --> 00:20:01,845 I don't find all that much mileage... 307 00:20:01,947 --> 00:20:07,613 in the idea of blaming Friar Lawrence for what happens in "Romeo and Juliet". 308 00:20:08,287 --> 00:20:11,279 Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone. 309 00:20:11,624 --> 00:20:14,286 Let not the Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber. 310 00:20:24,136 --> 00:20:27,128 Take thou this vial... 311 00:20:27,806 --> 00:20:32,470 being then in bed, and this distilling liquor drink thou off. 312 00:20:32,811 --> 00:20:35,371 So I think that the Friar is a pivotal character... 313 00:20:35,481 --> 00:20:39,042 not because he's a guide to what is the right view of things... 314 00:20:39,151 --> 00:20:42,814 but because he's an indication of how easy it is... 315 00:20:43,155 --> 00:20:47,489 for right thinking not to turn out right in the end. 316 00:20:48,994 --> 00:20:54,330 But the only two adults in the play who know what's happening... 317 00:20:54,667 --> 00:21:00,003 with their affection for these people they still regard as children. 318 00:21:00,172 --> 00:21:02,436 "Stand up, stand up and you be a man"... 319 00:21:02,775 --> 00:21:05,437 with the implication that you may not be it. 320 00:21:07,112 --> 00:21:11,776 It's almost as tough she has come to smack his bottom for being so childish. 321 00:21:12,117 --> 00:21:14,108 There's a feeling of that about it. 322 00:21:14,453 --> 00:21:18,116 Stand up, stand up, stand and you be a man... 323 00:21:18,457 --> 00:21:21,358 for Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand. 324 00:21:21,460 --> 00:21:24,122 Why should you fall in so deep an O? 325 00:21:24,797 --> 00:21:27,789 - Nurse. - Ah sir, ah sir, death's the end of all. 326 00:21:29,134 --> 00:21:31,034 Spak'st thou of Juliet? 327 00:21:31,136 --> 00:21:33,366 Where is she, and how doth she... 328 00:21:33,472 --> 00:21:36,032 what says my concealed lady to our cancelled love? 329 00:21:36,141 --> 00:21:39,474 O, she says nothing, but weeps and weeps... 330 00:21:40,479 --> 00:21:44,142 and now falls on her bed, and then starts up... 331 00:21:44,650 --> 00:21:49,986 and "Tybalt" cries, and then on Romeo calls... 332 00:21:50,155 --> 00:21:52,487 and then falls down again. 333 00:21:53,826 --> 00:21:56,488 At the end of the play the Prince says to the Friar: 334 00:21:56,829 --> 00:21:59,059 "We still have known thee for a holy man." 335 00:21:59,164 --> 00:22:02,099 Which implies that he will be pardoned. 336 00:22:02,768 --> 00:22:07,671 But the Friar has still failed to secure what he wanted... 337 00:22:07,773 --> 00:22:11,106 except by very extreme means. 338 00:22:11,443 --> 00:22:15,675 The Friar wanted to reconcile the two warring houses by the marriage. 339 00:22:15,781 --> 00:22:18,011 Well, it happened but not the right way. 340 00:22:18,117 --> 00:22:20,779 This was always meant to be a tragedy... 341 00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:24,453 and Friar Lawrence is trying to turn it into a comedy. 342 00:22:24,790 --> 00:22:28,453 Death of evil leaves us undeniably feeling thatjustice has been done. 343 00:22:28,794 --> 00:22:31,786 But the death of beauty, of love, ofjoy? 344 00:22:32,131 --> 00:22:34,122 We rail against it and Shakespeare knows... 345 00:22:34,299 --> 00:22:36,859 that in order for humanity to change its bigotry... 346 00:22:36,969 --> 00:22:38,960 intolerance and blind injustice... 347 00:22:39,471 --> 00:22:43,134 events must be shattering to the human mind and spirit. 348 00:22:43,475 --> 00:22:45,807 He gives us twin suicides. 349 00:22:46,145 --> 00:22:49,478 Does this fact secure the play's mythic status? 350 00:22:49,815 --> 00:22:55,151 Three deaths. Young people whose only crime was to love too strongly. 351 00:22:55,487 --> 00:22:57,819 Paris must die for love of Juliet... 352 00:22:58,157 --> 00:23:00,751 she and Romeo for the love of one another. 353 00:23:01,427 --> 00:23:04,658 Their suicides side by side in the cold vault... 354 00:23:04,763 --> 00:23:07,425 when they should have been warm in one another's embrace... 355 00:23:07,766 --> 00:23:11,429 leaves us horrified at the emotional bankruptcy of those... 356 00:23:11,770 --> 00:23:14,762 who should have protected them from themselves. 357 00:23:15,274 --> 00:23:18,937 The death scene absolutely... 358 00:23:20,612 --> 00:23:23,945 fulfils expectations and gives the play... 359 00:23:24,950 --> 00:23:28,943 its necessary shape and indeed its mythic status. 360 00:23:29,288 --> 00:23:30,949 We know from the prologue... 361 00:23:31,290 --> 00:23:33,281 that this is a "death-marked love". 362 00:23:33,625 --> 00:23:36,287 We know throughout the play... 363 00:23:36,628 --> 00:23:41,964 that this marriage in the tomb is where the play is heading. 364 00:23:42,968 --> 00:23:46,301 O my love, my wife! 365 00:23:48,307 --> 00:23:50,298 Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath. 366 00:23:50,642 --> 00:23:53,634 Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. 367 00:23:54,313 --> 00:23:56,645 Thou art not conquered. 368 00:23:57,316 --> 00:24:00,581 Beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks... 369 00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,912 and death's pale flag is not advanced there. 370 00:24:07,926 --> 00:24:11,828 The death scene of the two lovers is one of the most famous ones in Shakespeare. 371 00:24:11,930 --> 00:24:15,593 And it's interesting to have a play with that and the balcony scene. 372 00:24:16,268 --> 00:24:20,932 Iconic scenes, scenes people know even if they don't know the play very well. 373 00:24:21,607 --> 00:24:26,271 The lovers speak slightly differently in the scene in the tomb. 374 00:24:26,612 --> 00:24:31,276 Romeo speaks more elaborately. He has the extraordinary personification... 375 00:24:31,450 --> 00:24:34,112 of death as a rival lover. 376 00:24:35,120 --> 00:24:38,453 Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous... 377 00:24:38,791 --> 00:24:42,454 and keeps thee here in dark to be his Paramour? 378 00:24:44,463 --> 00:24:47,796 For fear of that I still will stay with thee. 379 00:24:48,133 --> 00:24:51,125 Time and time again through the play... 380 00:24:51,470 --> 00:24:55,804 the idea of death as Juliet's lover is presented. 381 00:24:56,475 --> 00:24:59,137 When Romeo arrives at the tomb... 382 00:24:59,478 --> 00:25:02,072 he is talking about her beauty... 383 00:25:02,414 --> 00:25:06,077 which is still unspoiled... 384 00:25:07,085 --> 00:25:11,317 by, as he takes it, as he thinks, I mean the irony is that... 385 00:25:11,423 --> 00:25:13,323 of course she's still beautiful because she isn't dead. 386 00:25:13,425 --> 00:25:18,419 But he thinks that death has got her in that tomb, in that grave... 387 00:25:18,764 --> 00:25:24,100 to be his "paramour". That insubstantial dead is amorous. 388 00:25:24,436 --> 00:25:29,772 It's a strange and strong disturbing idea right through the play... 389 00:25:30,108 --> 00:25:33,100 but "Romeo and Juliet" is operating in something of this territory... 390 00:25:33,445 --> 00:25:36,437 it seems to me, throughout. 391 00:25:36,782 --> 00:25:43,449 "Thus with a kiss I die", Romeo's last words. 392 00:25:43,789 --> 00:25:47,122 And the last action of Juliet... 393 00:25:47,459 --> 00:25:51,122 is to push the dagger into her body. 394 00:25:51,463 --> 00:25:58,027 And the dagger as a phallic symbol is a constant in European Literature. 395 00:25:58,136 --> 00:26:02,072 The consummation of love in the grave... 396 00:26:02,741 --> 00:26:08,737 is where the play has been going from the beginning and it's where it ends. 397 00:26:10,082 --> 00:26:15,076 There is no other destination, I think the mythic status of the play... 398 00:26:15,420 --> 00:26:18,753 depends on that disturbing equation. 399 00:26:19,758 --> 00:26:21,749 O churl! 400 00:26:22,094 --> 00:26:26,087 Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after? 401 00:26:30,102 --> 00:26:32,434 I will kiss thy lips. 402 00:26:33,105 --> 00:26:37,769 Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die with a restorative. 403 00:26:47,286 --> 00:26:49,277 Thy lips are warm. 404 00:26:50,622 --> 00:26:53,614 But you know, to meet, to love... 405 00:26:54,626 --> 00:26:59,290 to be separated by a horrible accident... 406 00:27:00,565 --> 00:27:05,559 to imagine that you are going to meet again and to die. 407 00:27:05,904 --> 00:27:10,807 I mean, what more typical version of the human journey... 408 00:27:10,909 --> 00:27:15,243 do you want than the story of this play. It's all there. 409 00:27:18,583 --> 00:27:20,244 O happy dagger... 410 00:27:26,258 --> 00:27:28,590 This is thy sheath! 411 00:27:33,598 --> 00:27:35,589 There rust... 412 00:27:37,269 --> 00:27:39,260 and let me die.