"Romeo and Juliet"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet" and Prokofiev's ballet version and shows how, because Prokofiev's ballet is quite lengthy and leaves out few elements of Shakespeare's version, the two works provide an unusual opportunity to compare verbal and non-verbal approaches to telling the same story. It examines how Shakespeare's language requires actors to render some very beautiful, intensely lyrical passages in a manner that approximates, without really becoming, natural speech. In comparison, it looks at how in the ballet the heightened emotions between the two protagonists can only be expressed in the music and the movements of their bodies. It shows how they must, in essence, communicate non-verbally what Shakespeare conveyed in some of the most famous speeches he ever wrote.

From the Paper:

"One of the best scenes for comparison is the most famous in the play, the balcony scene in Act II, scene 2. Here the lovers speak almost freely for the first time. They declare their love and commitment and are reluctant to part even though they must. This is one scene where Prokofiev's score had to accommodate the differences between a ballet and a play -- the challenges of presenting a story non-verbally. In Shakespeare's play Romeo returns to the Capulet house after the party and sees Juliet as she comes out to stand on her balcony. The conversation between the lovers is dangerous and fraught with suspense and it is frustrating, as they express their intense longing to be together and wonder whether they will ever find a way to accomplish this."

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