I’m currently in the middle of a YA story that I think is playing itself out like a Romeo and Juliet, but I haven’t decided yet. But it made me think of an interesting question.

We get a very in depth look at the Capulet family in Shakespeare’s story. We see Lord Capulet in a good mood and a bad one. We see where Lady Capulet and the Nurse’s loyalties lie. We know Tybalt’s story.

 

But what about the Montagues? How would the story have played out if the shoe was on the other foot and Romeo invited Juliet over to dinner? What do we think Romeo’s parents would have done? I don’t think they would have had a problem with it. In fact, many interpretations seem to imply that the Capulets were more well off than the Montagues and thus this would be an advantageous marriages for the Montagues.

 

 

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.

 

 

Well, that was underwhelming.    I think I can give it more of a chance now that the pilot is out of the way and it becomes its own story, rather than having to recap the changes they made to the Shakespeare original.  But this just means that it pretty much gave us very little Shakespeare and will now promptly leave it all behind.

Right off the bat, Benvolio and Rosaline (who is now a servant in the Capulet house, even though she is still acknowledged as family) are witnesses to Romeo and Juliet’s wedding.  There is no Nurse character – Rosaline is Juliet’s confidant, which turns out to be a very small role.

Tybalt and Romeo meet in the streets, Mercutio – who we only saw briefly a few minutes ago and who has no real lines – dives into the fight, promptly gets killed, Romeo then kills Tybalt without a second thought.  He’s even a dick about it, when Tybalt says “I thought you wouldn’t fight me,” Romeo stabs him and says, “I lied” or “I changed my mind” or some other 1980’s action movie catch phrase. He then escapes in a ridiculous chase scene where one moment he’s sloshing through water with armed guards chasing him maybe 20 yards away, and in the next Friar Laurence is confronting Benvolio in a bar who says, “I gave Romeo a horse” and that’s that, he’s gone.  But no worries, he’s heard that his wife died, so he comes back.

We all know what happens next – fight scene with Paris, drink poison (did we even see where he got the poison? I may have missed it), Juliet wakes up, drinks poison too (ok, bit of a liberty there).  But!  Paris is still alive!

The story is surprisingly full of holes for modern primetime standards.  We open with Prince Escalus and his sister reassuring their dying father that everybody will know his proclamation – that anybody committing murder in Verona will be executed without trial.   It’s repeated several times.

First…isn’t this a thing anyway? The way they spell it out makes it sound like we’re missing something, like this isn’t normally the way things would be done in this time and in this place.  If you’re caught killing somebody, your life is forfeit.  Not sure why he’s so big on making sure everybody understands this “new” rule.

Second, as an example of the weak writing – when Isabella (Escalus’ sister) repeats their father’s proclamation she says, “Any man accused of murder in the city of Verona will be executed without trial.”  Excuse me?  Any man accused? Without trial?  Well that sucks.  “Hey,  I accuse that guy of murdering somebody.”  *stab*

But!  A few scenes later, when brother and sister are discussing it, here’s the dalogue:, Escalus is made to repeat, ”

Isabella “…until our father proclaimed…”
Escalus: “…That anyone who commits murder will be executed without trial.”

That’s literally NOT what he said, and Isabella knows that, since she said it herself two scenes ago.

Third, the whole thing is useless because not only does Escalus himself stab somebody soon after, but the entire city breaks out into a riot where people are just randomly killing each other in broad daylight all the time.  Maybe it’s a rule that will come back around later in the series?

There’s all kinds of other weird back story added.  Rosaline has a sister, and both come across like Cinderella to Lady Capulet’s wicked stepmother. I guess she resents them because she was jealous of their mother? They say Shakespeare’s hard to follow when he moves the plot along off stage, but I have no idea what’s going on here.

What this is all moving toward is Escalus ordering that Benvolio and Rosaline are to be married, to forcibly join the two houses.  It doesn’t help that Escalus and Rosaline love each other, and Benvolio sees them together.  I’m not sure why this matters, because Rosaline and Benvolio are playing the Beatrice/Benedick game and proclaim their hatred of each other every chance they get, so I’m not sure why Benvolio would suddenly be all jealous because a woman who he doesn’t love, who doesn’t love him, wants to be with a different guy.

Ultimately the only Shakespeare we really got was Mercutio saying “A plague on both your houses” and Romeo saying “Thus with a kiss I die.” Other than that this is just an entirely new story told with some of Shakespeare’s characters.  It might turn out to be good, but there’s no point in following or reviewing it as if it’s got anything to do with Shakespeare.  I’m still hoping for some flashbacks (I see that the IMDB entry for Romeo’s actor lists him as “unknown number of episodes”), but I’ll be surprised if we get any.  We’re far more likely to get back story for Rosaline – her mother (and mother’s death), her relationship with Escalus, and so on.

 

Tonight’s the night!  Shakespeare on prime time.  I can’t wait!

In case you missed it, Shonda Rhimes – Shonda “Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Private Practice, How To Get Away With Murder” Rhimes – is going to try her hand at something more Shakespearean with Still Star-Crossed, a Romeo and Juliet sequel based on the young adult novel by Melinda Taub.

Early reviews are hopeful but negative, calling it a rare misstep for Rhimes and hoping that the pilot’s overly complex story is something that all new dramas face as they’re forced to get in all the necessary back story. Sure they’re going to take some liberties (some big, some small). We have a new prince, taking over after his father’s death, but who is also named Escalus? That’s a rather forced twist just so that we can have a backstory romance between Rosaline (yes, Romeo’s Rosaline) and this new Escalus.  But he then goes off and proclaims that to join the two families, Rosaline has to marry Benvolio.  You’ve already lost me, Shonda.  There were no other Capulet cousins? You just had to pick the one that you like?  Apparently Escalus 2.0 has a sister, too, so start taking bets on how many episodes it takes before she gets into the romantic triangles.

I am cautiously hopeful.  Sure it’s not Shakespeare – but neither was Shakespeare in Love, and that did ok.  If you drop in enough Shakespeare content you can still manage to tell your own story while keeping the audience happy.  If you took any of the other shows she’s turned into gold and just documented the storyline, they’d sound equally convoluted.  Remind me again on Grey’s Anatomy which characters haven’t slept with each other?

And hey, if it doesn’t work we can turn our attention to Will on TNT, premiering later this summer.

And if that flops too look for Daisy Ridley on the big screen as Ophelia.

Is it me or are we seeing a real Shakespeare trend here?  I am totally ok with that.  So far nothing animated, nothing with lions.  Future looks promising!

Anybody else hoping for the best?