Commentary

When we become immersed in a production of

Romeo and Juliet

, we have an experience which Michael Goldman has captured in a passage in which he reminds us that

Everything in

Romeo and Juliet

is intense, impatient, threatening, explosive. We are caught up in speed, heat, desire, riots, running, jumping, rapid-fire puns, dirty jokes, extravagance, compressed and urgent passion, the pressure of secrets, fire, blood, death. Visually, the play remains memorable for a number of repeated images — street brawls, swords flashing to the hand, torches rushing on and off, crowds rapidly gathering. … The dominant bodily feelings we get as an audience are oppressive heat, sexual desire, a frequent whiz-bang exhilarating kinesthesia of speed and clash, and above all a feeling of the keeping-down and separation of highly-charged bodies, whose pressure toward release and whose sudden discharge determine the rhythm of the play. (1972, p. 33)

When we turn from watching such a performance to reading or rereading a text of

Romeo and Juliet

, we will realize just how much the co-creative efforts of the director, designers, fight choreographers, and, most of all, actors — as well as the presence of our fellow spectators — have contributed to our experience.