Romeo, Romeo

A large National Council of Teachers of English teacher survey reported by Education Week lists Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet among the most frequently assigned texts in U.S. And Folger Shakespeare Library notes its edition sales (a good “what schools buy” proxy) had Romeo and Juliet first, followed by Hamlet, Macbeth, then A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, and Julius Caesar.

But before I start talking about British school subject matter, I better describe one certificate and one assessment of skills that are more or less standard in the United Kingdom.

First, there is the GCSE or General Certificate of Secondary Education.
It’s the main set of school qualifications students typically take in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, usually at age 15–16 (Year 11). Students take several subjects (like English, Math, Sciences, History, etc.), and the results are used for next steps such as A-levels or vocational courses.
And then there is the AQA -  which stands for Assessment and Qualifications Alliance an exam board in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that creates the syllabuses, sets the exams, and award qualifications for subjects such as English, History, Sciences, etc.).
Now back to the Shakespearean plays most frequently studied in the United Kingdom.

Most-studied in UK secondary schools - In the UK, the gravitational center is Macbeth—especially at GCSE level. A UK secondary teaching survey reports Macbeth as the most popular overall, and one study cited within the literature reports ~65% teaching it for GCSE (with Romeo and Juliet next).
Exam boards also list Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night.  12th night is sometimes add it to the list.

So before I start going into some of the modern productions of Shakespeare's plays, I thought it might be more fun, as well as instructional, to go back and look at the originals.

But first I'm going to give you what I hope is a simple timeline - about a minute - that roughly puts Romeo and Juliet into perspective date wise.
Early 1590s: early blood-and-thunder tragedy + first big history hits (think Henry VI plays, Richard III).

1594–1596: lively early comedies and experiments as his voice sharpens (e.g., Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream).

c. 1594–1596: Romeo and Juliet (mid-1590s), one of his early breakthrough tragedies.
1595–1596: Richard II (another key mid-1590s work).

1596–1597: The Merchant of Venice (often placed around this period).

1598–1599: Much Ado About Nothing (late-1590s “mature comedy”).

1599–1600: Julius Caesar (turn-of-the-century political tragedy).

1599–1601: Hamlet (written around this window; many place it at 1601).

Early 1600s: the “big tragedy” period ramps up (including Macbeth, usually dated after James’s 1603 accession).

1610–1611: late “romance/magic” phase, including The Tempest and The Winter's Tale.

1613: very late career work like Henry VIII.

Transcript

Welcome to celebrate creativity - this series is called conversations with Shakespeare and today's episode is called simply Romeo, Romeo - not too hard to figure out what play I'm gonna talk about today.

I apologize for mentioning in the previous episodet hat I wanted to talk about some of the newer versions of Shakespeare's plays and motion picture format but I realized it would be much better to figure out which plays are the most commonly studied in high schools as a whole first, and zero in on them. 

Now I looked at the statistics for locations where this podcast is downloaded & I have had downloads in 105 countries or territories. First on the list, not surprisingly, is the United States with 69% of all downloads and after that is the United Kingdom with 7%. I know the first Shakespearean play that I studied in high school was Julius Caesar - but until last night I had no idea about which plays are most commonly studied now – so I went to ChatGPT.

In practice, there isn’t one universal “high school list” (it varies by country, state, district, and whether the class is general, honors, or AP). But the patterns are pretty consistent.

Most-studied in U.S. high schools
If your goal is “maximum familiarity” with American listeners who remember what they read in school, the safe core is:

Romeo and Juliet (very often.  #1)
Macbeth
Hamlet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (very common “comedy pick”)
Othello
(Often close behind) Julius Caesar

A large National Council of Teachers of English teacher survey reported by Education Week lists Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet among the most frequently assigned texts in U.S. And Folger Shakespeare Library notes its edition sales (a good “what schools buy” proxy) had Romeo and Juliet first, followed by Hamlet, Macbeth, then A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, and Julius Caesar.

But before I start talking about British school subject matter, I better describe one certificate and one assessment of skills that are more or less standard in the United Kingdom.

First, there is the GCSE or General Certificate of Secondary Education.
It’s the main set of school qualifications students typically take in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, usually at age 15–16 (Year 11). Students take several subjects (like English, Math, Sciences, History, etc.), and the results are used for next steps such as A-levels or vocational courses.
And then there is the AQA -  which stands for Assessment and Qualifications Alliance an exam board in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that creates the syllabuses, sets the exams, and award qualifications for subjects such as English, History, Sciences, etc.).
Now back to the Shakespearean plays most frequently studied in the United Kingdom.

Most-studied in UK secondary schools - In the UK, the gravitational center is Macbeth—especially at GCSE level. A UK secondary teaching survey reports Macbeth as the most popular overall, and one study cited within the literature reports ~65% teaching it for GCSE (with Romeo and Juliet next).
Exam boards also list Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night.  12th night is sometimes add it to the list.

So before I start going into some of the modern productions of Shakespeare's plays, I thought it might be more fun, as well as instructional, to go back and look at the originals.

But first I'm going to give you what I hope is a simple timeline - about a minute - that roughly puts Romeo and Juliet into perspective date wise.
Early 1590s: early blood-and-thunder tragedy + first big history hits (think Henry VI plays, Richard III).

1594–1596: lively early comedies and experiments as his voice sharpens (e.g., Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream).

c. 1594–1596: Romeo and Juliet (mid-1590s), one of his early breakthrough tragedies.
1595–1596: Richard II (another key mid-1590s work).

1596–1597: The Merchant of Venice (often placed around this period).

1598–1599: Much Ado About Nothing (late-1590s “mature comedy”).

1599–1600: Julius Caesar (turn-of-the-century political tragedy).

1599–1601: Hamlet (written around this window; many place it at 1601).

Early 1600s: the “big tragedy” period ramps up (including Macbeth, usually dated after James’s 1603 accession).

1610–1611: late “romance/magic” phase, including The Tempest and The Winter's Tale.

1613: very late career work like Henry VIII.

By the way, if the names of most of these players seem completely new to you, you're doing about right. You might wanna go back over this list or simply remember this one line take away - Romeo and Juliet is a mid 1590s play written before Hamlet written in 1600 and well before the tempest written in 1610 to 1611

But today, I'd like to start with Romeo and Juliet.
First this episode includes references to violence and the deaths of young characters (handled non-graphically).

And here is William Shakespeare to introduce the plot and tell us why it matters   

WILL:
Good morrow, friends—near, far, and astonishingly far. However you have found me—by radio, by phone, by laptop, by whatever enchanted box now carries voices across oceans—welcome.

And yes: I know. You already know the title. You already know the lovers. You may even know the balcony. But if you think you know this play, I beg you—stay. This tale is not only about love. It is about speed. It is about public life invading private life. It is about families that cannot stop performing their hatred. It is about adults who mean well and still make everything worse. And it is, in the plainest sense, about what happens when a community turns ordinary days into a powder keg.

One gentle warning before we begin: this play contains street violence, and it ends in tragedy. I will not dwell on the physical details, but I won’t pretend the ending is anything other than what it is.

Now—come with me to Verona, Italy

Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

WILL:
A small confession: when I wrote this play—likely in the mid-1590s—I did not write it as a school assignment. I wrote it because it was good theatre: bold, musical, funny, frightening, and fast. The sort of story that could make a crowd lean forward in unison. The sort of story that could sell seats. The sort of story that, once it caught fire, would be performed “often…with great applause,” as one early title page boasted.

And it caught fire indeed. It was printed in 1597 in an unauthorized edition—something like a bootleg text—because popularity makes people greedy.

The city of Verona is already at war with itself

WILL:
Before we ever meet our lovers, we meet their world: a city where the air is charged. Two households—Montague and Capulet—have been enemies so long that their servants inherit the feud like eye color. And when servants brawl in the street, it is not “small.” It is political. It is civic. It is a public performance of private rage.

The city’s ruler—Prince Escalus—tries to stop the infection by threatening extreme punishment for further violence. In other words: Verona has reached that moment every society reaches when it says, “This has gone too far,” and yet—nothing has been solved.

and here we have young Romeo who is in love with love - young, romantic, gloomy.…until love becomes real
He is suffering—not from true love yet, but from the idea of it. He is pining for Rosaline, who will not return his affection. And if you have ever seen a teenager who thinks heartbreak is a religion, you know the shape of this scene.

His friend Benvolio wants to distract him. Mercutio—witty, reckless, electric—wants to mock him into sanity. And so they decide to crash a Capulet feast - a party where everything changes

At Capulet’s party, Romeo sees Juliet.

Not “notices.” Not “admires.” He is struck—like a match thrown onto dry straw. Juliet, for her part, answers him with equal force. They speak to one another with a kind of ritual intensity—language that behaves like poetry because they’re making a private world inside a public room. (In the play, that first exchange even forms a shared sonnet—two voices building one perfect shape.)

Then the terrible discovery: he is a Montague, and she is a Capulet. They are both from intentionally feuding families

And in that instant the play makes its wager: can love outrun a feud?

After the party, Romeo cannot leave. Juliet appears above—at her window, on her balcony, or on whatever piece of stage architecture your production can afford—and she speaks aloud what she believes is private: the strange reality that names can be poison.

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name,
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Note that in Shakespeare's time, the word wherefore meant why, so here Juliet is not asking where are you Romeo, but instead why is your name Romeo - why are you a Montague?

Romeo then reveals himself. They speak. They swear. And the thing that makes adults panic happens: they decide not merely to flirt, but to commit. Immediately.

And if you want the spine of the tragedy, it’s here:
Love is urgent.
Hate is already organized.
Time is the enemy of both.

Then comes the famous balcony scene, when Romeo speaks of his love -

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.
It is my lady. O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

And later Juliet replies
And yet I wish for the thing I have.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name,
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Later enters Friar Laurence—well-meaning, learned, hoping to convert private passion into public reconciliation. He agrees to marry them in secret, believing this bond might heal the city’s wound.

This is one of the play’s central ironies: the adults who try to fix the feud do so through secrecy—and secrecy is what the feud feeds on.

Now the play turns.

Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, discovers Romeo’s presence and burns for revenge. Romeo—newly married to Juliet—refuses to fight Tybalt, because Tybalt is now family. Mercutio interprets Romeo’s refusal as cowardice or betrayal. Words turn into blades.

A fight erupts. Mercutio is wounded. And with Mercutio’s fall, the play’s temperature changes: the laughter drains out, and tragedy steps forward.

Romeo, enraged and grief-struck, kills Tybalt. The Prince spares Romeo’s life but banishes him from Verona.

That banishment is not a mild sentence. In a story about two people trying to build a world together, exile is a death sentence stretched across time.

In response to Romeo's banishment, Juliet’s reaction is rather frank as she speaks to a rope ladder that Romeo uses to reach her.

Wash they his wounds with tears? Mine shall be
spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.—
Take up those cords.
The Nurse picks up the rope ladder.
Poor ropes, you are beguiled,
Both you and I, for Romeo is exiled.
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowèd.
Come, cords—come, nurse. I’ll to my wedding bed,
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!


Romeo and Juliet manage one more night together—one small island of tenderness—before Romeo must flee. Juliet wakes to a new horror: her parents have decided she will marry Paris, a nobleman.

Juliet refuses. Her father rages. Her mother distances herself. The Nurse—who has been Juliet’s most intimate ally—wavers.

Juliet goes to the Friar. He produces a desperate plan: Juliet will take a sleeping potion, appear dead, be laid in the family tomb, and then wake to flee with Romeo once the message reaches him.

It is a plan made of timing, secrecy, and perfect communication—three fragile things in a violent society.

But The message does not reach Romeo. Because of quarantine and contagion fears, the messenger is delayed. (You see? Even in the mechanics of the plot, the world itself interferes.) This is where the play becomes a tragedy of information: who knows what, when, and at what cost.

Romeo hears instead that Juliet is dead.

He returns to Verona. He goes to the tomb. Paris appears. There is conflict. And in the end, Romeo dies believing Juliet is gone forever.

Juliet wakes. She finds Romeo dead. And she chooses to follow him.

Then—finally—the families arrive. They see what their feud has produced. And only after the bodies are cold do they make peace.

The play begins with a public brawl and ends with a public reckoning.

That is the story. Now let us speak of why it matters.

Why this play matters — 7 reasons that still land today

1) It is the tragedy of speed

WILL:
Some tragedies unfold over years—slow corruption, slow ambition, slow decay.

This one is breathless. Events cascade. Decisions are made too quickly, reactions arrive too late, and time behaves like a predator.

That speed is not just plot—it is theme. It’s why audiences feel the panic. You are watching a door close over and over, faster each time.

If you have ever looked back on a moment and thought, “If only I had waited one hour,” this play is that feeling turned into theatre.

2) It refuses to let adults off the hook

Romeo and Juliet are young, yes. Impulsive, yes. But the tragedy is not “young people are foolish.”

The tragedy is “young people are trapped.”

Parents care more about honor than listening.

The city cares more about punishment than healing.

Friends care more about pride than safety.

Helpers care more about clever plans than honest truth.
You can love Juliet’s parents and still admit they are wrong. You can admire the Friar and still see that his secrecy becomes gasoline.

3) It’s a play about social violence, not just romance

The love story is famous, but the engine is the feud. The feud is a social habit—like a tradition, like an addiction. It lives in jokes, in insults, in “we’ve always done it this way.”

And that is why the lovers cannot simply “run away.” Hate has infrastructure.

4) It’s an early masterclass in Shakespearean theatrical craft

WILL:
You will notice how the play starts almost like a comedy—servants punning, friends teasing, a party, a masked intrusion—and then, at Mercutio’s death, the genre snaps. The same world, the same streets, but suddenly the jokes are ash.

That shift is not accidental. It is one of the ways I learned to make an audience feel the floor drop out from under them.

5) It’s obsessed with language: names, vows, performances

This play asks a question that is both poetic and practical:

Do words create reality, or merely describe it?

A name—Montague, Capulet—can become a weapon.

A vow can become a shelter.

A rumor can become a death sentence.

That’s why the Prologue dares to tell you the ending. It’s as if the play says: “You already know the destination; watch the language and the choices that build the road.” (And yes, the Prologue famously calls them “star-crossed.”)

6) It’s a story of failed communication

This is not only a tragedy of love. It’s a tragedy of information.

Who knows about the marriage? Too few.
Who knows about the potion? Too few.
Who receives the message? No one.

And that’s why this play feels modern: we live in a world of messages, yet misunderstanding thrives.

7) Its textual history tells you it was a hit

WILL:
Here’s a deliciously theatrical footnote: because the play was popular, people printed it quickly and imperfectly. There’s a 1597 quarto text that is shorter and notably different from later printings, and a 1599 quarto that is longer and more reliable—most modern editions lean on that later text.

In short: the play didn’t become famous in hindsight alone. It was already moving audiences in its own day.

WILL:
When we begin interviewing characters, I want you to have a few threads in your hand—so you can feel how each person pulls the tapestry.

Thread A: Light and darkness

They speak of torches, stars, dawn, night—not as decoration, but as emotional weather.

Thread B: Time

Haste, delay, lateness, “too soon,” “too late.” Time is practically a character.

Thread C: Hands and violence

Hands that touch in love, hands that draw swords in hate. The same human instrument, used for opposite ends.

Thread D: Performance

Romeo performs melancholy. Mercutio performs wit. Tybalt performs honor. Capulet performs authority. Everyone is acting—often to survive.

WILL:
Now, if you’ll permit me, I shall tease what comes next—because the plot is only the skeleton. The living body is the people.

Next episodes in this play-arc

Episode 2: Romeo speaks — not just “why he fell,” but why he falls fast, and what he thinks love is for.

Episode 3: Juliet speaks — her intelligence, her courage, her trap: how quickly she grows up because the world demands it.

Episode 4: The accelerants - some of the characters who knowingly, as well as unknowingly, turn heat into flame.

And I will ask them all the same core question:

“At what moment did you feel the story become unstoppable?”

Because that is where tragedy lives: the instant the characters stop believing they have choices.

Paris visits Juliet’s tomb and, when Romeo arrives, challenges him. Romeo and Paris fight and Paris is killed. Romeo, in the tomb, takes poison, dying as he kisses Juliet. As Friar Lawrence enters the tomb, Juliet awakes to find Romeo lying dead. Frightened by a noise, the Friar flees the tomb. Juliet kills herself with Romeo’s dagger. Alerted by Paris’s page, the watch arrives and finds the bodies. When the Prince, the Capulets, and Montague arrive, Friar Lawrence gives an account of the marriage of Romeo and Juliet. Their deaths lead Montague and Capulet to declare that the families’ hostility is at an end.

And the play ends with a brief speech from the prince of the town

A glooming peace this morning with it brings.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd.
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

WILL:
That is our beginning.

Remember: this play is not a monument you visit. It is a machine you enter. It runs on speed, secrecy, pride, and love.

Until next time—keep your ears open for the moments when a sentence could have saved a life.

Fare you well.

George
Sources Include:  the complete works of William Shakespeare, Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom, Shakesfear and How to Cure It, an unpublished manuscript by Ralph Cohen, and ChatGPT four.

Thank you for listening to celebrate creativity.
 
Greensleeves, traditional, performed by George Bartley, source: Fallingwater Dreams by George Bartley. License: Public Domain (composition) / Creative Commons (recording).



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