More than 400 years ago, William Shakespeare dramatized a story of love that in many forms had been told before and many more times had been depicted later. It is the kind of story that lives eternally in the minds and hearts of youth and diehard romanticists. Take the language out and change the scene, you have West Side Story. Keep the language in and add the forbidden female roles to film, you have Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. Keep the language but change the venue with modernized weaponry, you have the Baz Luhrmann version in 1996 with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes portraying the star-crossed lovers. What more could be done? The Elizabethan language had its beauty of descriptive, figurative language replete with metaphors, similes, and aethereal allusions. The language left the viewer, whether a common groundling at the edge of the stage or a sophisticated noble ensconced in the more expensive upper tiers, dumbfounded with adulation for the actors who expressed their varied emotions with lengthy harangues, vicious diatribes, and mangled metaphysical conceits perpetrated centuries before their time. For most, it may have been like listening to an un-orchestrated opera in which the actors performed their parts so well that their actions conveyed the message better than the words, which, as if in a foreign language, offered no insight into the meaning of whatever it was that was really going on. Enter a new rendition to parallel the original. Change the language and keep the feelings, the emotions, the passion, and the rhythm and rhyme as it was intended. Give the modern ear what it understands in a language it recognizes. Juliet is intelligent and coy, like her readers and contemporary viewers, who understand her feelings because they have them as well. Shouldn't they also understand her words? What boy, without a degree in language arts, etymology, and syntactical grammar construction, wooing his beloved, would know how to respond to Juliet's query on the balcony when she discovers someone lurking in the garden below: What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel? She really wants to know: Who's there? This rendition puts it that way, simply, to the point, and with the wry attempts at humor that Shakespeare so deftly imposed upon his audience.
Author Biography:
This is one of five (5) adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, the others of which are Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello, completed in that order following Romeo and Juliet. I iterate that these are not attempts to replace the brilliance of the bard but to complement what cannot be replicated. The process started many years ago in the middle ages of my teaching career. My students asked why Shakespeare did not write his plays in English, to which I responded and affirmed that he did. To resolve the subsequent problem of their not understanding the ENGLISH in which the plays were written, I endeavored to rewrite them in such a way that the meaning was clear while not sacrificing, where possible, the rhyme, rhythm, and reason of the original text. It has not been tedious work but rather an act of love of language and its implications that sparked the initial flame. My deepest appreciation and thanks must be offered to Richard Armour whose books I read and reread (and still read for enjoyment) for their unique and ubiquitous humor, specifically, Twisted Tales from Shakespeare, English Lit Relit, and A Short History of English Literature . . . . By no means do these labors of love purport to be authoritative references or sources of irrefutable pedagogy. They are meant to be read for enjoyment as well as for informational responsibility, that is, they are meant to reveal what one person, with the help of others, believes these hallowed words to mean. If by reading these lines, you better understand what was originally written nearly five centuries ago, then my efforts may be deemed a success. If not, there are other options out there in the literary world, ones with which I hope not ever to compete: No Fear Shakespeare (any title), and Sparks Notes versions (again, any title), which have modernized interpretations of the texts. If my texts bring tears, it is unintentional; if they bring smiles, then I smile, too, for that is one of the goals. Read and enjoy.
