Skimming through the reviews of Still Star-Crossed I stopped on this one from TV Guide entitled, 6 Issues William Shakespeare Might Have With Still Star-Crossed. The author says that we should dust off our freshman English copies of the play, but methinks she should have done the same.
The new series focuses primarily on Rosaline (Lashana Lynch), who in Shakespeare’s version was the unrequited object of Romeo’s affections before he ever laid eyes on Juliet. That means she had to be aligned with the Montagues or else the story would have been called Romeo & Rosaline. Shondaland not only switched Rosaline’s family allegiance, but made her an adopted servant of Lord (Anthony Head) and Lady Capulet (Zuleikha Robinson) — so she filled the role of Juliet’s nurse. She went from being a maiden of high society and the first love of Romeo (though she wasn’t into it) to being Juliet’s servant. Talk about a creative demotion.
She’s quite hung up on this point, because later in the article she adds this:
Though it will take some serious adjusting to get used to seeing Rosaline as a Capulet…
First of all, Rosaline is literally never in the original so it should take some serious adjusting to get used to seeing her *at all*.
But second and more amusingly …. what do you think, should we tell her? Ok, yes, let’s tell her.
ROMEO
Stay, fellow; I can read.
Reads
‘Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady
widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely
nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine
uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece
Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin
Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.’ A fair
assembly: whither should they come?Servant
Up.
ROMEO
Whither?
Servant
To supper; to our house.
ROMEO
Whose house?
Servant
My master’s.
ROMEO
Indeed, I should have ask’d you that before.
Servant
Now I’ll tell you without asking: my master is the
great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house
of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.
Rest you merry!Exit
Rosaline is a Capulet in the original, too. Don’t feel bad, it’s easy to miss that (heck, I only really paid attention to it last year). But it’s precisely because she’s going to be at the party that Romeo is convinced to go. I think the big mistake people tend to make is thinking that the Montague / Capulet thing is black and white, “every Montague will attempt to kill every Capulet they meet, and vice versa,” when really that’s not the case at all. It’s far more likely that in these two substantially extended families, everybody in town is one or the other, and they basically get along. It’s really only the heads of the families that still have “ancient grudge” issues. So while maybe it was ok for Romeo to lust (because really, that’s what it is) after a second or third cousin, him waltzing into the patriarch’s party and trying to hook up with his only daughter? Maybe not so cool.