Final Paper

Angela Davis
English 327: Shakespeare: Tragedies
Dr. Gleason
December 8, 2008


Film Adaptation Analysis

I was very fortunate to be apart of the play group, “All The Queen’s Woman,” which performed Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-know plays. Many people are first introduced to it in high school, which is when I first was introduced to it. Although that is the first time people are required to read and study the play is in high school, many people know about it before then, which was the case for me. It is referenced in television, movies, and books, which all make it out to be an interesting play. Then high school comes along and it ruins the fantasy of what the play is about, at least the way I was taught it did. My teacher approached Romeo and Juliet like this: read what is assigned, and then discuss what Shakespeare wanted us to get from that scene, and so on until we finished the play, finally watch the movie. Which was the oldest version she could find and nobody could understand what the actors were saying. From that moment on I lost appreciation for all Shakespeare’s plays, I basically washed my hands of them. When I found out I would have to take a class in college on Shakespeare’s plays I have to admit I was pretty bummed out, but I saw the professor’s name and realized the plays would be taught differently from what I was used to. I now have a better appreciation for the plays, some I still do not understand completely, but at least I now have a different way to teach the plays to my students from they way I was taught. One of the things that I learned from this class is, how do we know what Shakespeare meant when, one he is dead, and two there is not a lot of information out there about him. This is what I reminded myself while coming up with ideas designing Romeo and Juliet. A few times I caught myself thinking, “What prop did Shakespeare want them to use?” then I would remember, “This is my interpretation of the play, so it can be whatever I want.”
The role that I played in my group was the production and set designer. I think that I had one of the easiest jobs in my group because I did not have to memorize lines. Having only girls in my group presented some challenges. As a group we decided to make the characters all girls, some parts would just be manlier than others, mostly just Romeo’s part. We decided to turn the Friar into a Nun and Capulet was played as Lady Capulet. I needed to decide what I wanted the characters to wear, how their hair should be, and what props I wanted them to have. The only thing that I really took from Martin was the idea of Juliet wearing wings, and Romeo wearing some kind of shield during the party and balcony scene. The only thing that did not work out was that Romeo did not have a shield and instead a sword. The reason for this was because; Kathryn did not feel comfortable switching a shield from arm to arm while she and Emily danced. The other thing that I took from Martin was the idea of Juliet wearing white to show her “innocence.” As a group we had talked about Juliet wearing a different dress during the death scene to show her innocence was gone now that she was married, but while performing we realized we did not have time for that. Another thing that was talked about in the beginning was Montague wearing dark colors and Capulet’s wearing light colors, but almost all the scenes that we had both sides in were cut out so that was another plan that did not work out. Sarah was also supposed to have costume changes through out the play, but found it took to long to change shirts between scenes, so I just told her to wear a black shirt and pants and add different accessories depending on which part she would be playing. From the begging we also decided that everyone, besides Juliet should wear black pants, and not jeans, which helped make the play look a little more formal and put together. Other than those decisions it was left up to each person to decide on what to wear. I decided to wear all black since I would mostly be moving props around the stage, and that way I would not stick out.
As far as hair goes that was also left up to each person to decide. The only thing that I asked was if a person was playing a male part to have their hair pulled back away from their face. I thought it would be best for Juliet to keep her hair down. Sarah decided to wear her hair in a low bun which worked out perfectly for her parts. Along with hair we discussed makeup. Nobody in our group wanted to wear a lot of makeup so again I left that up to them to decide what to wear and how much to wear. I think that everyone made good decisions; no one stuck out more than another person.
Finally, are the props that we decided to use. I knew that we were going to need a balcony, a bed, and a desk as far as the bigger props go. I was a little nervous about coming up with how to get all of these things, but once I saw what was available to us my mind started to work. For the balcony it was suggested by Charlie to use the IV holders and a sheet. I did think about the movie and the way it looked. That was my favorite scene in the movie because it over looked to pool, I enjoyed how Martin portrayed that. Unfortunately, I could not bring a pool to the stage, but I could make it look like it was outside as much as possible. For accomplishing that task Sarah (the art major) volunteered to spray paint “stones” onto a sheet I bought to make it look like a building. Then we decided to use plants to make it look like an outside scene. The plants also doubled as Romeo’s “hiding spot.” To make Emily look taller she stood on a block, which also doubled as a bed, and for the tomb. The blocks were all that we had available as far as a bed, so we made do. We put the blocks together and put a sheet on top to make the bed, and just switched the blanket from the bedroom scene to the tomb scene. That ended up working out very well. Finally, instead of a desk we used a table for the scene with Juliet and the Nun. It would have been nice to have a desk so they could have moved around a little bit, but I think that the scene turned out better than if we would have had a desk. Now on to the smaller props, we needed more than I thought in the first place. Emily played a big role in this part, because she had a lot of what we needed. She had the nun costume for Sarah, a dagger for her, and a mask for Lady Capulet for the party scene. Kathryn provided Juliet’s wings and her own sword. Each of us brought other little things that we needed, like the pillows and blankets, flowers, etc. The only things that we borrowed from Charlie were a vial, and the bigger props. Also last minute we realized that we needed another sword so we borrowed that from another play. Lastly, we used music for the dancing/party scene and for in between scenes.
I tried to refer to Luhrmann’s movie and Martin’s design decisions as much as possible while making choices for the play, but I found myself and my group members wanting to make it more unique to us and what we had to work with. It is difficult to pull exact evidence from the movie, when I think a lot of what we came up with was our own.
Play Performance Comparative Analysis
Like I said before I tried to do as much of the decision making on my own without referring to the movie. Some things that I learned while doing the production and set design is that it was definitely more difficult than I thought it would be. Although, I do not think I could memorize lines as well as some of my peers, I sometimes found myself wishing that I could be an actor instead. I now realize that people like Martin deserve a lot of props for what they do, and it is not just the director who makes all of the decision for a movie. I enjoyed the bright colors that Martin used in the film, the bright reds and blues. I also liked the costumes that the actors wore; although they were cheesy they were creative. My favorite costumes were on Mercutio they were very over the top, I wish I could have brought this into our group, but unfortunately Mercutio was cut out of the play. Also it probably would not have worked as far as the costume changes went. In the end I learned that Martin did a lot of work for Romeo and Juliet and without her Luhrmann would not have had a movie.
My approach had to be different than Martin’s because I did not have all of the same materials that she had available to her. I also needed to come up with props that would be easy to move and accessible to the others in my group. Although Martin was very creative in her decision making, I think that I had to be more creative for a few different reasons; time, budget, and things that were available. I also think that I toned things down a lot compared to Martin. I did not use the same bright costumes as she chose to use, also I did not have my group members do their hair the same. Another approach that was different was the movie was modern and our play was meant to be done like Shakespeare’s original plays. This changed the props that we used, swords and daggers instead of guns, and we tried to make our costumes not as modern as Martin’s were. Finally, because people did not feel comfortable being over the top in their performances, I did not feel like costumes should be over the top. The best example I can think of for this is again, Mercutio. He was the most over the top in the movie and so were his clothes. It seemed like the clothes the characters wore in the movie reflected how the character acted. I can now say the same for the characters in my play group.
Finally, I did take some interpretations from Martin but I also had my own and had to work with the other people in my group interpretations. I think the main similarity would be how she dresses Juliet and how I dressed Juliet. Form the beginning I wanted Emily to wear white throughout the play, like Juliet in Luhrmann’s film. I also really wanted Emily to wear the angel wings for the party/balcony scene. I felt like it was important to portray Juliet’s innocence since that is one thing we discussed a lot about in class. Angels are innocent and pure, and that is what Juliet is meant to be also. The other thing that I wanted was for the nurse to be similar to the movie; unfortunately this did not happen because we did not have the costume available to us. Other than that my interpretations differed from Martins. I think this had a lot to do with what the people in my group who were actually going to be performing wanted; I was as flexible as I could be because I wanted to make things as easy as possible for them. Kathryn was not as dramatic as Romeo was in the movie, and I personally liked Emily’s performance as Juliet better than Claire Danes. The only other thing that I would have liked to do as Martin and Luhrmann did would to be open the play as news broadcast, but again unfortunately time was not on our side. Another reason we did not do this is because it was mentioned until we already had everything the way we wanted it.
In the end I think that our play turned out better than we all thought it would. I learned a lot from this experience, and I am happy I was given the opportunity to experience something different than I am used to. I learned that Martin had a harder role in the movie than I thought, and it is not an easy job. I am glad I gave this a chance because in the beginning I was against it, but once I got going I realized what a good idea it was.


















Works Cited

Romeo and Juliet. Ed. Peter Holland. New York: Penguin, 2000.
William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. 1996. DVD. 20th Century Fox, 2002.