Monday, December 9, 2013

Romeo and Juliet, at Folger Elizabethan Theater


The perfect poetry of Shakespeare’s tragedy reveals the heart-breaking loss of “star-crossed” love. Helen Hayes Award-winning director Aaron Posner leads an outstanding ensemble into the heart of this powerful, provocative play.
Romeo and Juliet just closed at the Folger Elizabethan Theater in Washington, DC., always a must-visit for me whenever I travel to the US capital.  I will always love The Prologue, the sonnet that literally sets the stage for this timeless romantic tragedy:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

No comments:

Post a Comment