COMPLETELY OT Romeo and Juliet

Apr 19, 2007 73 Replies

I've hated that play since the first time I read it 30+ years ago in junior high. And more so in HS and again in college.



BUT NOW I DESPISE IT.



DS had to read it in class. OK, I can at least help him with it and he does pretty well with the quizzes and final. Then the other boot drops. He has to watch multiple movie versions (including that horrid Leonardo DiCaperio one) and THEN THE ULTIMATE HORROR. He has to film a scene from it with classmates or other teens. Well - he misses the chance to team up with school buddies when he's out sick on the critical day. And his buddies say yes and then can never make it...



So, he's just finished acting the whole Mercutio/Tybalt sword fight....BY HIMSELF with costume changes....Talk about painful....


And I'll have to go through it again with DD when she gets to 5th grade and again in 7th grade and again in 9th grade.



I HATE THAT PLAY.



But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Sorry. Could. Not Resist.

Donna in Virginia

Why not just "Goodnight Sweet Prince" and then you can prance off to bed and get away from the whole thing.

Do you think anybody really likes it enough to read it, watch it, reread it, watch it again, and then reread or watch it over and over again ad infinitum? I guess there are some that do but I'm not one of them.

Lucille

Well - it had to be 5-10 minutes long and adapted from the "New English" translation.

Grr - what fool makes them read that piece of drivel 3 times during their public school years. Once, maybe in 9th grade, is more than enough. Give me Much Ado About Nothing or King Lear any day.

Cheryl

Cheryl Isaak ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

Give me Macbeth anyday.

Out, damned spot; out, I say. One, two,?why, then ?tis time to do?t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

I would've had you marked for a "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble" kind of girl..... :)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well now there is one always saying I have murderous propensities lol

Another great tragedy!

Cheryl

i cannot believe that they were made to watch MOVIE versions. That is not Shakespeare, it is Hollywood selling to the lowest common denominator of people!

I think it is good to see it acted out, but it has to be in real theatre in my mind, not the idiot tube or the big screen.( See, I am definitely a GOW and HATE the bastardised versions that are made to strictly make money).

Playing around in a sword fight definitely does not give the whole sense behind the story.

Kids are a hell of a lot smarter than they are given credit for! ( Love it, ends in a preposition!).

Cheryl, am emailing you off-group. DH bought me a new Palm, my old one was dead, almost Tango Uniform. It is a Tungsten E2. Is this what you have???If so, I need to ask a few questions pertaining to cataloging flosses etc.

I would say, give DS a hug from an invisible aunt, but if he is like young Mike, forget it!!

Gill

Oh well, end of vent!!!!

I cane here for one year, on a contract, met DH#1, married an am still=20 here. Anyway, a year or so after we married we went to England to visit=20 my home. I bought back all my treasures, including the "Complete Works=20 of Shakespeare" my Dad gave me on my 13th birthday. Customs in the USA=20 were going through the half dozen suitcases or so, and came across the=20 book. "Why did you bring this?" they asked. "Because I like reading it " =

was my reply. All the rest of the bags and boxes were autimatically=20 waved through for this crazy young woman!!!

As a nice note, I found the same book, with my dad's inscription in it,=20 in my daughter's bookcase when I was in MD this year!

Gill

First they read the "Old English", then a "translation" - both out loud and silently. Then they saw the movies. There aren't a lot of places that have Shakespeare on the bill locally. (never mind the cost of getting them there)

I'll talk Palm off list. C

Gill Murray ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

We still give it each other books with something written inside as to when or why. I wonder do other people do that ? I don't see too many friends doing it 'in case they want to exchange the book' I guess.

I even have a Handy Book for Bible Readers which says "This Prize has been awarded to Albert Harding (my maternal grandfather) for Proficiency in Biblical Knowledge, Examination A.D. 1888" - guess that goes back a bit lol

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Ah - but we are reading it, not speaking it aloud.

Cheryl

To bring this thread on topic - look here.

It's a Shakespeare design.

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in Virginia

Oh my! I like that. Then again, I don't think I've seen anything of Lynne's I didn't like if not covet.

Cheryl

Too bad - I've always kind of liked it, for it's statements. We had to act it out for something - maybe in 8th grade.

But, my best similar memories...10th grade Honors English. My group of 4 or

5 got assigned "MacBeth" . We had to do a presentation of the entire play. What a hoot. We did storyboards (like in the old silent movies) for some critical scene changes. Recorded music (we had a few musicians in our midst) for the presentation - to accompany our narrative. Did the visual as a slide show. Most of us played 2 or 3 roles. We went to a park - Greynolds Park, in North Miami, where there was a small castle of stone that had been built there from some transported old stuff (down the road from the 17th century Spanish Monastery). And the simple castle tower was on a hill. The best -a lovely photo of me in a cape holding up the Bloody Head. At some point the park police came to see what the heck these 5 teenagers were doing - but, well, we got through it. I still have that box of slides - I think I'll have to convert them to something digital. It was hysterical.

IIRC there were about 5 or 6 groups, and we each had a different play, and had been given at least a few weeks for the assignment, Then we had an hour to make our presentation.. I'm sure we got an A. Best MacBeth I ever saw...well, kind of.

Tomorrow night we're going to see Coriolanus - a lesser known one of the Roman plays. RSC is here, we saw another version by them about 5 years ago, so this will be interesting . All the reviews of this version are raves. Maybe DS will like reading that - or you could suggest it to his teacher - it's got war, poltics, some Freudian stuff between the title character and his mother, and a core of what happens to a seemingly egotistical warrior upon realizing emotional feelings for family, etc.

ellice

Sure. Bookstores here in the US have been booming. Granted, it's mostly the large chains, but at least around here they are always crowded. Full of comfy places to sit and read, browse around. Book club meetings. DH and I often do the book thing, and surprisingly this year he actually received a very nice hardback book from another friend during our holiday exchange.

I suspect that it's a very either/or kind of thing - people either really do buy books, and occasionally gift them - with inscriptions, or they pretty much never do.

Nice. As a child I had a gorgeous, old set of leather bound classics for children - that had been my mothers, and I'm sure were bought from a book dealer for her in the 30s (as the books were much older). When I was about

13, we were moving to a new house, and I had very young 2nd cousins - so my Mom told me that she was "lending" my books to her cousin Susan (the mom) for the daughters, but that when they grew up would be returned to me. Another silly thing - I don't think I ever forgave her for that - as of course, I've never seen those again, and who knows what the girls whom I only get relayed info about - ended up doing with them.

ellice

Yup, very nice things. I really want to do the Poseidon - but, Donna convinced me to look at some of the others. I just don't like the face on Thimbelina, do kind of like Pearl Purl, and am contemplating the "Alice" piece - I like the curiouser and curioser phrase. But, the buried motifs in the Poseidon really intrique me. So, Donna & I may just have to work out the copycat thing - though I'd do a slightly different color set for the linen... And then I could have Donna do the beading since she's so practised.

Ellice, r.d.h - or going to the laundry for the moment

Alison ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

Lol - so that's why I have so much bad luck !

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