The phrase ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is instantly evocative. In the collective imagination of the English-speaking world, it elicits thoughts of romance, young love, and a bond that transcends time. These popular associations are so strong, that for many modern audiences, to actually see the play is a shocking experience. The play is raucous and funny. It’s explosively violent. And the titular lovers only share five scenes together, in a play that is twenty-five scenes long.
Even so, it is a story that has persisted in our culture for centuries, starting well before the time of Shakespeare. It is impossible to pinpoint the exact origin of the story, though some of its earliest incarnations date back to ancient Rome. The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is at least as old as ancient Roman poet Ovid, and appears in Metamorphoses (though Ovid likely based this on an even earlier version). These characters bear striking similarities to Romeo and Juliet; young lovers from enemy households, who meet a tragic end through a series of misunderstandings. (In Ovid’s version of the myth, Pyramus kills himself after finding Thisbe’s blood-soaked cloak, assuming she’s been eaten by a lion). Despite the obvious aesthetic differences between this story and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, we know that Shakespeare used Pyramus and Thisbe as a point of reference. In fact, he directly parodies Ovid’s story at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when the mechanicals perform a muddle version of the story to the Duke Theseus.
The trope of the feuding families likewise persists through antiquity. So much so, that it’s nearly impossible to separate myth from history. The Capulets and Montagues, the two rival families in Shakespeare’s play, are based on two real political families in 13th century Italy: The Capuleti and the Montecchi. Historically, the feud between the two families centered on a larger religiopolitical conflict, centered around the fierce debate as to whether the Pope or the Roman Emperor held authority. It is likely that Shakespeare based his ‘two households’ on these families, mentioned in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. In Shakespeare’s telling, the political background is dropped entirely, in lieu of a personal (though largely unexplained) rivalry between the two clans. In this sense, Shakespeare highlights the senselessness of the families’ strife, while still maintaining a cultural reference that is appropriate to the period of the play.
From these sources sprung a number of works that centered around an ill-fated pair of young lovers. Notably, Masuccio Salernitano’s Mariotto and Ganozza, which introduced many of the plot elements that were later made famous by Shakespeare, including the meddling Friar, the death of Mercutio, and Juliet’s plot to fake her own death. This story, in turn, was adapted by Luigi da Porto as Giulietta e Romeo, giving the iconic characters their now-famous names.
In this sense, the continued revisiting of the myth of Romeo and Juliet is very much in line with its history, and with Shakespeare’s own literary aesthetic. Though he is often remembered as one of the most creative writers of all time, it might be more accurate to say that he is one of the greatest adapters of all time. Indeed, almost all of his plays draw direct inspiration from contemporary works, and from mythology that resounded in the popular imagination of his time. In light of this, it’s fitting that the Alley continues to add to the tradition of depicting these two lovers, in a production that infuses an ancient story with a slight taste of modernity.
