![]() In order to make history support the viability of an uneducated genius from up Warwickshire way, it was necessary to stir up a second batch of production and publication dates. ![]() The significance of the above is that Time has been out of joint for nearly four hundred years. Having learned rather more about love (and women) he re-worked a boyhood poem called Romeus and Juliet into the vehicle so appropriate to the skills of both Ms. It was, of course, the dashing twenty-five year old Earl of Oxford who had just returned from the Continent loaded down with enough of the Renaissance to last him (and us) eight or more lifetimes. Now there was a real person living in Stratford-on-Avon at the time Romeo & Juliet was begun –but he was only eleven years old. This play was written by someone who had been there (circa 1575-1576). But the version worked over between 15 by someone who called himself William Shake-speare (note the hyphen) is the only one that has the facts right about the topography of Verona. Thanks to wizards like Leonard Bernstein there will be more. The original version of Romeo and Juliet goes way back there have been others along the way. As for that other gang, those clever producers, writers, and directors, it is only the garters and whips of history that prevent me from falling as readily at their feet. Had I the time and space and skill, I would write (for the entire cast) the beauty of their art. Rarely does one see in the cinema, even in films about plays, the kind of centripetal spirit that one likes to think once infected the best of those sixteenth century revels. The only way to de-suspend my disbelief is to bring this remarkable production kicking and screaming back into the real world.īefore putting on my rubber gauntlets I would like to say that the cast was seamless the spirit of the Bard was with them. This smorgasbord approach has been tried with other Shakespeare, but never so effectively and may I say, “theatrically,” in the best sense of that soggy word? Had Tinker Belle or ET urged us to clap or cheer at critical points I would have shed some sixty-five years to be first. The sense of love and love of love created by the film was stronger than ever I can recall being generated by the play itself. While I can not speak for someone who does not know Romeo and Juliet (and who does not?) it is actually possible to understand this version of the play while living through it. My admiration and wonder peak at the splendid way in which the play is interwoven with the the action of the film. But a “plantation” in “Virginia”: please! Perhaps the most Shakespearean is “nothing better than a play,” which prurient key word gets 30 lines in Eric Partridge’s compendium Shakespeare’s Bawdy. It speaks quite properly to Her Royal Highness’ well-known understanding of and concern for her Ladies and what they (probably) were in-waiting for. The “plucking” of Viola (Violet?) is appropriately unsubtle. Love has its own brand of joy, underplayed to an audience that has only recently milked the Oval Office for every double-jointed entendre. Then there were those smart “anons” to the good nurse being used in a parallel world the obligatory ghost scene and heartbreaking lines from some of the sonnets.īowdler and the Lambs to the contrary, the Bard knew where the funnybones were inter-connected. It will be a long time before any of us forget the clever credits in the playbill-within-the-play. For those who have remained faithful to the Stratfordian myth, and for all who look to a brave new (oops!) Oxfordian world, there are some surprises. With the accolades ringing in our ears we can now set to work and find out just how it’s producers were able to do such a splendid job. Now that all of the Oscars have been given out and the celebrities have gone home, someone has to do the cleaning up. He is on the Board of the Oxenford Press. Joe Eldredge is a long-time Oxfordian, architect, critic and poet. Brief Chronicles & Other Past Journals ExpandĪ good movie, and an authorship Valentine by Joe Eldredge.
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