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‘Theatre Should Be About the Way We Live Now, Not the Way We Used to Live’. Discuss This Statement, in the Light of the Production You Have Seen, to Show Your Understanding of How You Think the Impact of the Play Has

Decent Essays

The performance we saw of Romeo and Juliet directed by Rob Salmon was designed to appeal to a contemporary audience; attempting to show characters that one would expect to see in the local area, a key example of this could be costume worn by Lady Capulet. Throughout the performance Lady Capulet was wearing clothes which could be considered some what provocative, with a very bold leopard print, a statement in society that is often considered to be ‘wild’ and suggestive of being sexually available. This is a major contrast to what an audience would have seen women wearing in the era of the original performance, women were very controlled by society’s standards and revealing merely an ankle would be seen as scandalous. This is clearly an …show more content…

Salmon chose not to cut the length of the play in any way to the key scenes choosing to leave the performance as it was written. This made for a long performance that sadly meant the loss of interest by a certain point by much of the audience. This can be used as a demonstration of difference in lifestyles between when the play was originally written and performed and now. In its original performance context much of the audience would be the working class who earned very little money, (considered groundlings if at the Globe) attending a performance would be a day event due to the lack of very little else to do entertainment wise so the length of the play would not be a concern, in fact they would expect it to be long. However in today’s society people are consistently surrounded by quick forms of entertainment, with games available on their mobiles and access to the internet etc. This is something that fits much better into the average life styles of the working class today; people want quick and fast relief from their busy life styles and so a performance such as the length of Shakespeare’s is no wonder that it loses

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