Friday night I had the great pleasure of seeing Romeo and Juliet as produced by Granite Classical. It was a lovely performance, with all the magic of Shakespeare and all the innocence of a high school play. Anyways, of course the famous title of my post comes from Juliet's monologue. However, I would tend to disagree with Juliet.
Think about the names that you've been called in your life. Think about the names of your friends. There are definitely certain social stigmas associated with each name. My best example is from camp - at Wildflowers I'm called Lotus (inspiration for the title of this blog). I will always identify with the name Lotus. There are many people in my life who know me by that name alone, and no other. Think about the nicknames and pet names you've been given. Each of those has a special stigmata. Think about your last name - it's your family name. If you like it or not, it's an important part of identifying who you are. Names ARE significant.
So I think there's a inerrant flaw in Juliet's speech. In fact, I think their entire romance was flawed. I think that when I read the play. However, as with most plays, they are far better when performed. Tom and Grace has a flawless performance, convincing me of their undying affection, and other members of the cast were also marvelous.
(PS - this is the first post for BEDA, aka Blog Every Day in April)
1 comment:
first off - I'm super happy your doing BEDA ^_^
and 2ndly I totally agree with you about camp names and nicknames. One of the seniors at TMC my freshmen year did her senior thesis on how naming is an act of love. which is why it is so significant for parents to name their babies, or to name someone after someone else, and even silly things like the fact people name their cars or boats and such. It was pretty cool way of looking at names and nicknames that I really liked.
And I also agree that R&J is a flawed romance -- it's beautiful and wonderful when performed well, but it is kinda part of our culture as an ideal love story - which it's not, it's tragic. But I could ramble on Shakespeare for quite a while so I will spare you. ;)
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