Ep. 299 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare — The Stacks Book Club (Farah Karim-Cooper)

Written By Cherie Marquez

Author and Shakespeare scholar Farah Karim-Cooper returns for our final book club episode of the year to discuss the Bard’s most famous play – Romeo and Juliet. We ask questions around why this play became William Shakespeare’s most well known, and why we teach it in schools. We also share the characters we love and hate, and unpack the way race plays into the text.

Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our January book club pick will be.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and it is our final book club episode of the year. I’m thrilled to be joined again by Shakespeare scholar and the author of The Great White Bard Farah Karim-Cooper, she and I are going to break down William Shakespeare’s perhaps most famous play ever, Romeo and Juliet, you all already know the story of starcrossed lovers who find each other amidst an intense family feud. It’s been adapted into many films which we talked about today. We also ask questions about which characters are the best why this play is taught in schools still to this day, and I get a little spicy with some of my most hot Shakespeare takes, there are spoilers on this episode. In case you’re not familiar with Romeo and Juliet. Make sure to listen to the end of this episode to find out what our January 2024 book club pick will be. Quick reminder, everything we talked about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. All right now it is time for the book club conversation on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with author and scholar Farah Karim-Cooper.

All right, everybody. It’s finally time to do Shakespeare. On the Stacks podcast. I am joined again by the wonderful Farah Karim-Cooper, the author of The Great White Bard, we’re discussing Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, which we will be spoiling. But also, you guys know what happened. But just in case you don’t if you’ve never read the book, and you have no idea what this is, let me give you the quick synopsis which is basically Romeo and Juliet. Two teenagers fall in love their families hate each other. drama ensues. So that’s the synopsis. Farah, first of all, Hi, how are you?

Farah Karim-Cooper 3:00
I’m really good. How are you doing? It’s great to be back.

Traci Thomas 3:03
I’m good. I’m so glad you’re back. Okay, we always start here, which I think this will be kind of a loaded question for you since I know you know, and love this play. What did you think? What do you think of Romeo and Juliet?

Farah Karim-Cooper 3:17
Wow. Yeah, that’s a big question. What do I think of Romeo and Juliet? Well, it was my gateway drug to Shakespeare as it is for most people. I think I talked about this in my book where I talked about how I met Shakespeare, and it was in my freshman English class. But it wasn’t through the text. It was through the film version, which may have been some sort of prophecy about my future investment performance of Shakespeare as opposed to just reading Shakespeare. But I remember watching the Zeffirelli film, which I think was made in the late 60s and IxDA. It was, like stunning for me. And there’s been a lot of bad Romeo and Juliet films. But that was a kind of key marker for me and then the Baz Lurman one was a key marker for me.

Traci Thomas 4:10
Okay good. I was worried you were gonna say that was a bad one. And I was oh, no.

Farah Karim-Cooper 4:13
I loved it. Thank God because I love it. Yeah, we we can geek out on that one at some point. In this conversation.

Traci Thomas 4:19
We will I have a whole section on the movies. Okay, let me give you my quick overview of the play. I love the play. It was not my first Shakespeare my first Shakespeare was Midsummer’s Night dream in elementary school. I Pitt played well, he’s blossom or something. I’m one of the little fairies maybe mustard seed, I don’t know one of those little ones. But in high school, we did read Romeo and Juliet. But in middle school, the movie came out for me. So I was familiar with the story. I love the play. I think it’s one of his bests. And we can talk about that too. Because I want to know what you think about why it’s one of the most popular ones. But every time I read it, I I like it more. And I’m my previous reading and forms it for me. So like, I read it, I think in 2018, most recently before this week, and I remember thinking like, the adults in this play are a problem. And then when I read it this time, I was like, had that in the back of my head. And every single thing the Friar Lawrence says, was like pissing me off, you know, it’s like, each time I read it, I’m more I’m like, Oh, I remember thinking this or like, the last time I read it, I remember thinking about how good Juliet speeches were. And then this time when I was reading it, I was thinking about how her speech how she almost like, loses speech, by the end of it like I was, because I was thinking so much about how good her text is. And like, after everything that happens, like by the end, it’s like, she kind of disappears before she dies. And so those like little, like, each time I read it, like it gets richer for me. But I do want to start with why you wanted to read this one on the show, because I sent over a list, I think of like seven or eight and this is the one you picked. And so I’m curious, why this play for this moment?

Farah Karim-Cooper 6:08
Well, I think it’s No, I think I want people to think about the play a bit differently, I guess, as a Shakespeare scholar, but also as someone who has a teenage daughter. Yeah, because I think I’m always very curious. And I’d love to know what you think about this as to why this play is the one that we teach freshman English, we teach 1415 year olds this play the almost the exact same age of Romeo and Juliet. And it ends in a double suicide of two teenagers. Right. And so we, I think, for years that has been sensationalized and glorified, romanticized. And it’s not new to romanticize tragic endings to lovers. Because, you know, that’s something that people have done for centuries. But we do we do it in a way that’s almost pathological, you know. So I’m just, I think I wanted to talk about it, I wanted to talk about and flesh out what the play really is, while also holding on to all the things that we love about it, because I do love this play. And the poetry is sublime, even if some of it is quite racialized, but it is sublime poetry. And it is incredible, the moment when Romeo and Juliet lay eyes on each other, how they speak to each other, the way that’s depicted in my two favorite films, I haven’t seen a production that’s been able to surpass that.

Traci Thomas 7:30
I agree that holy Palmer’s kiss scene is just, like, reading it, seeing it every time I get it, like makes you feel, I don’t think you can read it and not with the verse, the way the verses and the way that it’s like a sonnet broken up and the rhythm, it’s just so there, even if you don’t know anything about Shakespeare, if you read it out loud, and you hear it out loud, it’s just like, oh, wow, beautiful.

Farah Karim-Cooper 7:55
It’s also incredibly intimate. I wrote a book a few years back about the hand on the Shakespearean stage. And I had a whole chapter on touch. And I had done lots of research on like the palm of the hand. And for women in the time, the palm of the hand was seen as the most in one of the most intimate parts of the body. So, you know, like how you touch a woman at court, you know, you have to kiss the back of her hand, you cannot be kissing and touching the palm of her hand. And the fact that they hold each other’s hands, palm palm suggests an intimacy that we kind of lose in the modern world.

Traci Thomas 8:33
Yeah, okay, so why do you think this is the one we teach? I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Like, I guess I can go, I’ll go first and tell you a little bit of what I think I think part of it is because the characters are the age of the students. And I feel like that feels like an easy entry point. You know, the language is challenging for a lot of young people, and adults. And so if you’re like, Great these, most of the people in this play, Benvolio Mercurio, Tibble, Paris ish. They’re all like younger people. And so I think that that’s like an easy entry point. I think that it’s because there are good movies, too. I think that’s why like, teachers are able to be like, Look, you can see this and like, feel it in a way that’s exciting. And I think that I don’t I don’t know that this is on purpose. But I do think that the sex in this play, there’s so much like body language, so much sex, so many puns. I think that that maybe, like years ago when this became curriculum was maybe something that they talked about more in school in a way or like kind of like, you know, like the creepy teacher who like says inappropriate things. It kind of has that vibe, you know, it’s like it like got into curriculum when like old white guys were in charge. And now it’s sort of like, huh, so I think that that It’s all part of it. But I do have questions about like, about the suicide, obviously. And like why that’s it. And I also feel like, of the ones I think we talked about this last time. Like I think that Macbeth is a much easier like a much better read. Like I think there are plays that are better read so much of this play, especially the first half is wordplay so much like, I mean, the first scene with the like two guys in the street, it’s that whole, like, courier courier or whatever. Like, there’s like four lines of just wordplay. And like so much of Mercutio is wordplay with Romeo and Romeo rhymes so much. And I don’t know that that translates as well off the page. So I don’t know. But so why do you think?

Farah Karim-Cooper 10:44
So I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with what you just said about, you know, it’s about identification, you know, how to get young people interested in Shakespeare is show them the play that’s about young people that’s about them. And of course, it’s full of like the turbulence of teenage hormones, and this sort of irrationality of adolescence, and the kind of impulsive things that you do for for your heart for passion, you don’t really think things through, and you’re 14 necessarily. And so that’s something that you can identify with. I mean, I know a lot of productions. Lately, particularly in England have focused on the kind of street violence and knife crime and that kind of thing as a way of talking about current problems in society that teenagers are facing. So that’s one that’s probably one way it’s a great sort of site for exploring their own worlds. Like if it’s handled really, really well. I think the way I was taught it, even though we saw this great film, I was taught it in a way that was sort of, ooh, look at this amazing, romantic world. And I was like, wow, looking back. It wasn’t so romantic at the end, actually, as you say, the adults are pretty messed up.

Traci Thomas 12:02
Yeah I mean, I think I think if I was teaching this play now, as an adult, and all that, I know, I think in addition to what you’re saying about like the sort of violence I think I would teach it as like a cautionary tale that like adults actually don’t know everything and that you have to question in these moments because I think like Friar Lawrence is such a letdown at every turn. I’m very anti Friar Lawrence. I have got like, I I’m so out on him. I think he’s an idiot. Like, I think he knows nothing. I think he I think there’s a version of this where Friar Lawrence can be, could be some form of like a cult leader. Like there’s the scene where he’s talking to Romeo after Romeo Spanish and he’s like, be happy, be happy. Like I like a fault toxic positivity guys. I’ve been working on my herbs. I’ve got this potion. It totally works. This is one I’m gonna send a letter like, I got this in the very end. When when the when the prince is like, what happened? And he’s like, Well, John, mess this up. And the nurse knew about this, like, I gotta go. And he’s like, Juliet. Juliet, I’ll make you a nun. It’s fine. Like he’s such a scammer to me. So I hate him. But I do think that they’re like, I think that the nurse lets Juliet down. I think her parents let her down. I think the fact that Romeo’s parents aren’t around at all. Like I think there’s a conversation in this play about how even though the children make bad decisions, the adults are making consistently bad decisions over and over and over again. And I think that that’s something that I would want to teach if I was teaching this play now.

Farah Karim-Cooper 13:33
Yeah, yeah, I think they’re right. I think there’s something about the dysfunctionality of a society that that starts with punishment. Right, that punishment is like that seems to be the mode everything’s punitive. You know, when the prince comes out and says stop the street fighting the next person that does this will be the consequence, you know, and then Romeo’s banished and so there there is, I feel for the fryer a bit because I think the fryer is trying to do the other thing and try to move them away from the punitive and, and actually think of solutions. And actually, we can do it this way. It fails miserably. But I think I have I’m a little bit more team fryer than you are.

Traci Thomas 14:13
Well, I’m definitely if you’re at all Tim fryer, you’re more teamer than me. I am like, I think fryer is bottom bottom of the barrel to me. I do. I do think there’s definitely like a punitive element. I think. What is good about this play, though, part of the problem now is that everyone knows it. And everyone’s seen it is that if you don’t know what’s coming, the ending is extremely shocking and upsetting. Right? Because the whole lead the whole first half of the play like most of Shakespeare’s or like some of Shakespeare’s tragedies is sort of a jovial play. There’s a lot of fun, there’s a party, they meet, they kiss, they go, and then you know, act three where everyone we’re murmur, cuccio and Tibbles are killed and that sort of the switch but if you really don’t know what’s happened Hang on, there’s still a world where like, you can believe that something else is possible. And I, I think that that’s a really interesting thing to teach. If if if the teacher has a classroom of students who really don’t know it, and like you really are reading the text, and going with going on the journey that Shakespeare set up, I think so often productions now are done. And the assumption is that everybody knows it. And so they’re playing to the end from the beginning, like so many productions lose the fun and the joy of the first part, and like the bromance between mer, cuccio, and Romeo, like, as I was reading it, I totally forgot that that’s even like in the text, because I think so much of like, more crucial as being he’s going to be dead soon, that I forget so much of like the levity of that character. And when he come after Romeo goes and consummate, or know after Romeo meets Juliet, and he’s like, Oh, are you still rhyming? Like, oh, you’re still just Mr. Hot like this, like that playfulness, I love. And I think that that’s also a potentially great thing that you can teach. And like, as far as like story structure, and as is as like, what the theater can do. You know, I want to ask you a little bit about the language and the verse. How do you think about iambic pentameter? How do you suggest that other people think about it? Like, I know, some people read for the iambic pentameter, or some people read to the punctuation? You know, I know people who say that they observe the verse, And then I see the production. And I’m like, that’s not the verse. So I’m curious how much how important that is to you.

Farah Karim-Cooper 16:41
So it feels that in this play, the poetry the Pentameter is important, you know, to observe, if you are cutting the script, you know, you can’t perform the whole thing. It’s some of it’s quite repetitive, particularly friars kind of explanation at the end. It feels like, if you’re cutting the script, as a director, you’re gonna have to really think about scansion, you know, did these lines scan and so it’s a kind of difficult task. So I think it does matter in this play, there are other plays, where it matters less. But this is a play that uses the vehicle of poetry in order to communicate love and desire. And it was a chief vehicle for the expressions of love in that time period. And so Shakespeare is being very conventional, but unconventional there. So he’s been conventional, in that he’s, he’s using this language as a way of saying, there are ways to tell someone you love. And actually, sometimes you can’t even use the most beautiful language to describe what’s in your heart. And, and then he’s being unconventional and that he’s writing a play. And he’s got sonnets being spontaneously composed by teenage lovers. I mean, it’s extraordinary. So in some ways, the play is about poetry. So I do think that the poetry matters. But of course, you approach it with young people often with the story first, because that’s what’s going to grip them. And then you come in with the poetry.

Traci Thomas 18:06
Yeah, I think I told you that I was an actress. And I did a lot of Shakespeare in college, and I studied with Louis sheeter, who did classical Shakespeare in New York. And then also, one of the productions we did was directed by Tim Carroll, who I am so yeah, and Tim is very intense about dynamic pentameter, aggressively, and so was Louis. And so when I was in college, I encountered this play first in school, read it, just try to figure out the words. But in reading it with the pimp with iambic pentameter and scanning the lines and doing it, I think the plays better, like I do think that you can find like the antithesis and you can really find the arguments within the rhythm in a way that helps make sense of like, exactly what, what, especially with Juliet with what she’s grappling with, like in the Gallup pace speech, and in the Manish speech, like she’s really grappling and in the speech before she takes the poison, she’s really grappling and like, convincing herself of something or figuring something out. And I think when you shy away from reading the lines, as iambic pentameter and finding the rhythm, I think it hurts the story. Like I think it takes away from the story itself. But I know so many teachers and people are, like, scared to use it, they think that it feels rote, or like, you know, but that I thought, I thought, it’s like, no, you can still do that without doing that. And I think like, this is, at least for me, and I’m curious to hear what you think because you again, have that theater and English background as like. I think that people in the theater are so connected to the performance of it. And people in the classroom are so connected to the language of it, that there’s like a disconnect. And I think, I think that that’s part of like the problem that we have with Shakespeare with young people is like depending on where you get it from First, you might not ever get it again. And so if that way doesn’t click for you, you might not like it. You know? I don’t know that makes sense.

Farah Karim-Cooper 20:09
It does. I think in the classroom, you don’t, as I was saying, you don’t have to start with the poetry because that is a scary part because these words feel really archaic. And the way Shakespeare puts these words together, it’s hard. But when you’re able to work with students, and I’ve seen this before, because I used to teach high school, when you work with students, and you say, this is what it means. And then that light bulb goes on in their face, and they’re like, oh, my god, that’s amazing. Yes, it is amazing that he this is the sentiment he means. And it’s because they can identify that meaning. But the fact that those words, point to that meaning is gives the students a sense of competence, that they understand that it’s, it’s an accomplishment and achievement, as much as it is a kind of revelation for them. So I think that you can go in, it doesn’t have to be let’s just look at language, it could be here’s the story. How many of you have felt this way? You know, and are you excited to feel this way? Oh, but look what can happen. You just go through the story, you show them a film, and then sit down and do stuff with a language. And there are lots of activities that you can do with the language that actually are sometimes a rehearsal room activities, the education department where I work at Shakespeare’s Globe, a lot of our education practice is, is straight from the rehearsal room, you know, using techniques from the rehearsal room so that students get are able to get their mouths around the words and then their minds around the meaning.

Traci Thomas 21:37
Yeah, I want to go into the play. I was talking about the ages of these children. Is this book, actually, perhaps I know, we can’t actually get to what Shakespeare was thinking. But let’s try. Do we think that this book is actually supposed to be read as romantic? Or do we think that this is some sort of criticism on young marriage or a cautionary tale against young people or old people, older people or whatever? Because Juliet’s superduper young, and I know that people got married superduper young, but even in the book, there’s some moments where it sounds like it. She’s young, even younger than maybe the norm at the time.

Farah Karim-Cooper 22:18
Yeah, I mean, first of all, it’s kind of a myth that in Elizabethan England, people got married when they were teenagers. Sometimes we, you know, women in aristocratic households were betrothed early on to somebody so that, you know, they can keep the classes sort of aligned. But, you know, a lot of people the average age was in the 20s. You know, it was like either 2025, even 27. So, so, yeah, that is kind of a myth. And so I don’t think Shakespeare is necessarily making a kind of comment on his own moment. But I think what’s really interesting is that it is a story that people had talked about, right? It’s, uh, his source text is Arthur Brooks 1563, sort of novella version of Romeo and Juliet. And then there’s this kind of ancient story from Verona of of this, you know, Juliet, this couple. And so he’s drawing on sources. And, and the story is, it’s timeless, like people loved that story. So he’s finding a new expression for quite a familiar story. And I think the age thing, I think there is you hear Capilla at one point comment that, well, she’s a bit young Paris, I don’t know if she’s ready for this, you know, he does kind of comment in that way. But the anxiety of a patriarch like caplet, who’s only got one child, and it’s a daughter, and a patrilineal society, which means that your, your kid, whichever kids you have, will inherit your property. And it should go through the go through the male line. So whoever she marries the property will belong to the man, because it’s patrilineal. It won’t be in her name. And so he’s very, very concerned about who she ends up with. And I think that that is what kind of really provokes him to enable her to be patrolled so early.

Traci Thomas 24:18
Yeah, I want to talk about love. Romeo, Romeo is a fuck boy. I claim this for him. It is true. There is so much textual evidence that that is who he is. From his friends from the fryer even listen, there’s the part where the friars like you love by rote he’s like you’re so basic what that’s the writers best part for me when he’s counting on Romeo but was love different than like, it’s like Paris at the very end when he’s in the tomb. He’s like, Oh, my my beloved Juliet. And I’m like, I know you’re sad. But you guys didn’t even talk except for like twice in the entire play. Like you don’t know each other. And Romeo loves Rosalyn, then he loves Juliet after 35 seconds. And then she loves him. And I’m just like, what was the deal with love?

Farah Karim-Cooper 25:17
So, first of all, I love the idea. So Romeo is like an archetypal Petrarchan lover, right? So this person who worships us.

Traci Thomas 25:28
That’s a fancier way of saying, yeah.

Farah Karim-Cooper 25:31
And lover aka busboy, basically. Yeah, yeah. So he, he’s sort of over romanticize his love. And he becomes obsessed with love itself, as opposed to the person who he loves. And you see examples of that, and Shakespeare. And what’s so interesting is that Juliet kind of says, Okay, I love the poetry, but when are you going to get married to me? Right? So what are we going to do about this, and I love that she brings some agency and action, to the story. And, you know, I think that’s what I love about her the most. So I think love was depending on it, particularly if you’re thinking about aristocratic families, love didn’t really have a place when it came to beverage. But love Shakespeare sort of seems to suggest in many of his plays, is, is not necessarily married to reason, or to social convention. And so human expression, human desire, human passion, can escape, and we’re not always in control of it. And there was huge sort of movement, particularly in the Reformation period, to be in control, or to at least regulate your emotions, right. And if you can’t do that, then somehow you’ve, you’ve lost your sense of reason. And then that will lead to sin, and all kinds of bad things will happen. And this overregulation of the self is something I think Shakespeare seems to question in a lot of his plays, you can’t control all the time how you’re going to feel or how you going to express yourself. And so if you do bottle things up, it will jump out in a way that feels unnatural. So he’s looking at human compulsion in a way that I think a lot of his contemporaries weren’t, because it was, you see a lot of texts at that time talking about love melancholy, and how silly it makes you and how uncontrol of your senses you are, and you need to control your senses, you need to control your bodily desires. Otherwise, you’re not a good citizen, let alone a good subject of gods. So. So I think he’s sort of bashing against that, particularly with this story. Love is a real thing. It is a real thing for them as much as it is for us. And you see that in poetry, not just Shakespeare’s write essays written about love, but the expectations from society about love and about marriage can be really oppressive. And I think this plays sort of dealing with that tension.

Traci Thomas 28:06
Right? Like the stakes are feel a lot higher, like being betrothed to Paris feels a lot higher than like the stakes. If your parents now we’re like, we would like you to get married to this person feels like there’s more options. I think also like the way that Shakespeare uses language and all of his plays, and like the way that he will change, you know, the speed of like, how many words are in a line or like, versus like longer lines are like how much lines are shared. And like that quipping nature. And all of that, I was, I’ve always been taught to, like, read that as indicative of some change right in the text. So like, for example, the scene, the holy Palmer scene, that there’s clearly a connection between them because they’re sharing so much of this sonnet, right, back and forth, back and forth. And that shows that there’s this connection. And so I think what’s interesting in this play is that that moment, they’re on the same page. But throughout a lot of the play, it doesn’t feel like Romeo and Juliet are on the same page. They’re always sort of like, she’s asking him, how did you get in here? What are you going to do if my, my family finds you? And he’s like, love, there’s more peril in your eyes than your family? And she’s like, No, they’re literally going to kill you and love you. And then like later at the post coital scene, where it’s like it’s the nightingale No, it’s the lark. Like there’s always sort of this disconnect between them, which I think is really interesting, and maybe that they’re like trying to get back to that first moment of like, really being on the same page and like the the Palmer’s kiss and the sharing of the lines and I think it comes in and out. But I do find it interesting that so much of their relationship that we see is them being on a different page or like having these like little arguments and fights. And I don’t know But it says, but it does. When you really read it, and you take away the like idea of Romeo and Juliet, but you really read what’s on the page, there is a conflict between them throughout and like, and that carries over with, they’re not in the same place when he’s banished. And she’s here. And, and, you know, I there’s just something about that tension that I find really cool about this book, like the idea of that verse of what’s actually there.

Farah Karim-Cooper 30:28
I really love that too. I think what’s fascinating about it is the plays structured on this tension between binaries. So whether what I remember I wrote an essay A long time ago about the sort of up and down line, which is the language of ascension and the language of dissension, there’s a lot of sort of vertical language in this play. So you’ve got Juliet up on her balcony, and Romeo down under the shadows, she’s the son, and he’s, you know, he’s the opposite. And so you constantly get this sort of tension between them. And then you’ve got the sort of racialized black and white binary that’s operating in the place. So night and day. And, you know, she’s a, I think, a swan among Crow’s, you know, describing her beauty. So there’s opposites. And the sort of, you get a sense of, I like to use the word tension, because it has a sort of tangible sensation to it. And that if you’re pulling a rope and someone’s pulling the other side, there’s a real tension there. And it feels like there’s things at stake. And I feel like the play is structured on that on that tension. And of course, the whole basis of the story is this feud between the monkeys and the Capulets. And so I think that’s a really productive thing. And I think that’s something that Shakespeare is doing very, very deliberately. And of course, because she, she’s, she’s not a rasa line, you know, the person who was in love with before, you know, she’s Juliet, she’s an embodied person, not some ghosty mistress of a smile, you know. And so you get that tension too, because he’s like, wait a minute, sonnet, Mistress. You’re just supposed to be worshipped and adore that. And she’s no, I’m earthy. I’m human. I’m made of clay and flesh. And what are you going to do with me? What are you going to do with my body? You know? So I think that tension in the play is just absolutely delicious. It’s what it’s what gives the play its its energy.

Traci Thomas 32:29
Yeah. We got to talk about race, because you wrote, you wrote the book on it. I don’t think that I ever would have thought of this play as being a racialized play. And I think probably most people would have the same, you know, feeling about it. If you were like, Oh, I wrote this book about Shakespeare and racp. Like, right Othello. Aaron, the more maybe we get some Anthony and Cleopatra, maybe we got some Shylock. But you have a whole chapter, or whole section on Romeo and Juliet. And I’m wondering sort of like, what are we missing on this one, when it comes to race?

Farah Karim-Cooper 33:20
People have wondered why I would include Romeo and Juliet in this in this book. And I think it’s because I didn’t approach race as a topic. But rather, I think I may have said this too, before that I think of race as a context in which Shakespeare is operating right there. And he’s operating at a time of racial formation, we know that there were black people and people of color living in England during the time Shakespeare was writing his plays, England was becoming a global, you know, aspiring to becoming a global empire and eventually does 150 years later. And so there’s all of this travel and exchange. And so that creeps into the language of the time, whether it’s through racialized binaries, like between black and white. Now, a lot of people say, Oh, but those are just metaphors, they are metaphors, but but studies have been done that show that metaphors related to color actually can impact upon the way in which we think about people. And we think about racial difference. And race had multiple meanings in that time period. It was associated with kinship with stock with lineage with descent. And so this, these are concerns that the Capulets have and so do the Montagues. You know, when tipple sees Romeo at the moment at the capital of bull, he says, Oh, he’s not of our stock. So it suggests that there’s a sort of blood difference between them. And so, you know, in my book, I don’t say this is an interracial relationship in conventional terms the way that we understand it, but in terms of reading based on ideas about who should who belongs with whom it is interracial. And it’s just a kind of invitation to think about it in that in that sense, but then you’ve also got in the imagery, you’ve got language like a praising Juliet, to emphasize for whiteness, using blackness as a foil so that whiteness can shine even brighter. Right? Right. She’s a pearl in an Ethiopian ear, as she stands it against the dark night. Now, what is an Ethiopian doing rough being referenced writing this play. So if we pretend that that isn’t there, then we can say this play has nothing to do with race, but we can’t pretend that’s not there. And Shakespeare uses the term Ethiopian, several of his other plays mostly in the comedies as a form of anti black racism. So what is it doing there? You know, what, when I researched that line, I was thinking, I thought, well, when you look at paintings, and of course, there are a lot of paintings from that time and that and after that, that show a white woman with a black child or a black servant child that often has a pearl in his ear. So this is some sort of trope, about ownership about the beauty of whiteness, the way whiteness can shine against blackness. And that is racialized. And what’s really interesting is that when you think about the methodology I use, which is performance studies, and what performance studies does, is it it uses the actor testimonial, as a body of evidence about the meaning of a play. And to biracial actors who perform that part of Romeo and Juliet at the globe and conversations with me that have been documented, talked about the way in which that language made their bodies feel diminished. So it was whether Shakespeare intended it to be racialized, or somebody who reviews my book doesn’t agree it’s racialized, to black actor said, this is racialized, and it’s racializing. Me. So when, you know, it’s, you know, she found it really difficult to talk about, or to use the lines about how whiteness is, is actually being elevated in relation to Juliet. Because it wasn’t, it wasn’t reflective of her own beauty. Right biracial woman. So I think, I think that there are lots of ways in which we can think about this play. And when I say we can think about it through the lens of race, it’s not to say that’s the only lens through which to see the play. But we just need to stop ignoring it, we need to stop ignoring race. So my point in emphasizing this play is that race is in there. It’s a context. Shakespeare’s thinking about it. It may not be about race, but there are racial images. And if you’re teaching this play, like we do to a class full of diverse students, and they come across images that diminish their bodies, and we don’t acknowledge that, then I think we’re trying to treat Shakespeare as some sort of benign genius. And that’s kind of what I’m against anyway.

Traci Thomas 38:05
Right? I think it’s also really interesting, because, you know, one of the most famous adaptations of Romeo and Juliet is Westside story. And they really play on the racial difference, though, they sort of go the opposite way and make Juliet less white by making her Puerto Rican or whatever. I mean, that’s not really the right phrasing of how race works, but you know what I’m saying, and they keep Romeo as white. And I think that that’s really interesting, because so many of the versions that I’ve seen that have had interracial Romeo and Juliet have had Juliet as the person of color. And I wonder if that is influenced by West Side Story. Or if that I wonder why I part of me thinks that maybe it’s because populat is so angry, so it’s easier to cast a person of color as an angry father, because that plays into those stereotypes. Do you know what I mean, though? Like, it’s like, sure, having an angry black dad scream at his daughter and call her names is easier than having an angry white dad do I mean even in the Claire dames one. The dad is like, he at least looks like Sicilian or something. Right? Like he doesn’t look pure white, like we’re told that Juliet is. So I think that that’s like, I love the Capulets. They are my favorite characters in the play all three of them, Julianne, Lady and dad kept I just I love those scenes. I love the scene where he flies off the handle and he got like, because it’s a scene about grief. They’re all grieving. And he’s like, he’s like, No, we’re not going to do it. Actually, fuck it. We’re going to do it tomorrow. Like, everybody got here. You’re gonna get married. I just I love it. And I love Lady Capulet. I love that. She’s like trying to balance these two things. And she’s like, Look, girl, she always calls her girl. She’s like, Look, girl. I’d like the scene starts with them. I know where I’m from like going on a tangent, but when the scene starts, and everyone’s like, Juliet, why are you still cry? And then I was like baby Juliet’s a cancer. And then I went back because let Lamis day is August 1, and she was born like, a fortnight and a few days before that, so she is a cancer. So she’s emotional. And so I’m like, this makes sense that she probably always cries about everything. And her family is like, so annoyed with her and they come in, and they’re like, What, girl? Why are you crying still, and she’s like, my cousin died. And I like get over it. Like, stop crying. And then the dad comes in. He’s like, why are you crying? I just, I just love the dynamic of that family. And like, I love it. Like, if you’re an actor, and you get to play Capulets, that’s probably such a fun role. Because he goes from being like, super chill with Tybalt being like, don’t worry about Romeo. It’s fine to being like your daughter in the world. And like, it’s just such a swing-

Farah Karim-Cooper 41:02
But then he would tipple at the party, where he’s like down, relax, and then he’s like, You better not.

Traci Thomas 41:09
He’s like, What did I say? You’re a fool. And he’s like, Oh, I just there’s something about that character that just speaks to me. I know, it’s such a small part. But I do really love both of those characters. The parents, and that’s such a tangent, but we’re talking about anyways. But I do wonder about like, why so often, Juliet is the one that is when when not cast with two white actors, or two actors of the same ethnicity, she is often cast as like the darker skinned one.

Farah Karim-Cooper 41:38
Yeah that’s really interesting. I think. So much of the time in theater productions until very recently, it was colorblind casting, right. So obviously, you know, which I hate, obviously, but I think, and obviously, the audience isn’t always colorblind, which is one of the reasons why it’s problematic, yes, as a casting practice-

Traci Thomas 42:01
But for people who don’t know, colorblind casting just means they were doing this thing in the theater, where anybody could be cast as any part, but everyone was treated as if they had no race. So it wasn’t like, Oh, you’d cast a dark skinned black person, and then that would become part of the conversation of the play. No, you would just cast a dark skinned black person, and they’d be like, she’s so fair, what beautiful white skin she has, and you just be like, okay, or like in, in mid summers, they talked about like how fair Helena was and how dark Hermia was, but Helena would be black and you just like, you’re, we’re just gonna go with it. And so like parents would have no, they would have no, they wouldn’t look like their children in any way. It would just be like, there’s an Asian dad. There’s a Mexican son, like, figure it out.

Farah Karim-Cooper 42:47
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there are all sorts of problems that are generated from colorblind casting. And now more and more actors are finding it really, you know, they don’t want to be cast in that way anymore. While other actors of color feel like actually I just want to play Hamlet doesn’t really matter what, how you cast me in terms of my race, right? So it’s very subjective. But as a practice, it’s, it’s it’s not as ethical as we used to think it was. So I think with Juliet, sometimes the sometimes when I’ve seen her cast, as a woman of color, it’s largely been in a colorblind production. And so they’re not thinking about race necessarily, even though those dynamics come across, in the production that, that I was referring to earlier, directed by Allah ence, he’s a black female director that directed at the globe. And I think it was 2021. She has two biracial actors who presented as black and they talk a lot about that casting decision, which was very, very deliberate. But not to highlight race, but only because they wanted to be very conscious about about race when they were thinking about the script and, and also the performance. So I don’t I don’t necessarily, I do think that sometimes, directors unconsciously fall into stereotyping. There’s just no question, particularly around the Capulet role. And the more conscious you are, the less likely you are to to do that in ways that are offensive.

Traci Thomas 44:22
Yeah. Speaking of colorblind casting, the Baz Lurman movie cat famously casts a black actor is Mercutio. And now I literally cannot think of that part without a black actor. I’m like, oh, white people do this role. But I have to ask you, is there a homo erotic relationship between Romeo and Marcucci?

Farah Karim-Cooper 44:47
Do I think there’s definitely queer energy in this play? Definitely. Between the two of them, between the two of them for sure. Mercutio feels very invested. Did and Romeo and very possessive as well. And there is a sort of dynamic between them. That is actually really interesting and beautiful at times. And so yeah, I definitely think there’s a queer energy there. And, you know, you think about, you know, definitions of friendship in Shakespeare’s time is queer, it is male friendship was it was very much, you know, we can be wholly connected on a Neoplatonic level, because there’s no sexual tension between us. You know, apparently, you know, you can have an equal relationship with a woman because she’s not your equal, but two men can have a much more meaningful, equal friendship and relationship that’s beyond any other kind of level that you could have with a woman, because we’re equals. And that’s the basis of friendship that if, if there’s a hierarchy there, there’s no true friendship, and so that it develops a sort of a queerness to it, that relationship, and certainly would lean into that from time to time.

Traci Thomas 46:11
Yeah. I mean, I had never really thought about that. Previously, but as I was reading it this time, I was thinking in act two Scene four, Romeo and Mercurio, sort of like share lines in the same way that he has just done with Juliet. And then later Tibble refers like refers to hit them as consorting, which sometimes, like used to mean sex in these plays. So I was like, Oh, I’d never I’d never really, I had heard that, like, played out before. Like, in the version, the Muslim and version, the actor Harold Pip, wrote, I don’t know his last name, he is sort of effeminate. And so I’ve seen it sort of played out in that way. But I’ve never really paid attention to it, like how it shows up in the text itself. And this time, it felt really clear to me, because then you have his relationship with with Benvolio that does not have that same rhythm or connection, and they don’t seem to have much deep conversation at all.

Farah Karim-Cooper 47:09
That feels more sibling a doesn’t it? It does. I joke to her cousins or something.

Traci Thomas 47:14
I was thinking this time around reading it, then Benvolio. I think Benvolio is like such a waste. He’s like such a narrator character to me. But I was thinking of him this time as like, he is a reality TV producers dream because he comes on and he’s like, this is what’s going on with our main character. Romeo has this thing going on. Like he knows what’s going on. But he’s so removed from it. He’s like, if you watch The Bachelor, he’s like the person who’s definitely not winning, but loves to do the in the moment interviews and be like this person and this person. And it was such drama.

Farah Karim-Cooper 47:44
He’s also trusted. He’s the trusted one. Yeah, everybody can go okay. Benvolio says that it’s true. Yeah, it’s a bit like Horatio and Hamlet. Right. I wonder if it’s played by the if it was played by the same actor original, interesting that that part is so similar in terms of their relationship to the to the protagonist, male, right.

Traci Thomas 48:04
And like in the relationship, then to us, the audience like that we trust them to? Because I think like, Yeah, that’s actually really interesting. I hadn’t thought about it that way. But I guess maybe I had a little bit because that’s the person who, for reality TV, that’s the person who relates, yeah, they’re setting the whole thing up. And they’re believable. They’re believable rate. And they’re clearly they’re clearly liked by the other people around them because they have the information. Yes. What about the Queen Mab speech? I know, everybody loves it. It doesn’t do a lot for me, personally. But what is it about it? They do think that makes it such an important speech to audiences? And like, why, why that I just like, there’s like seven features in this play and like, the one everybody loves, and it’s just sort of a list. So I’m curious if you have insight to it.

Farah Karim-Cooper 48:55
I think it’s because it’s dense with meaning. And also so expansive in terms of meaning, like what it mean, for example, Baz Luhrmann interpreted that as an acid trip, basically. Whereas it could be interpreted in lots of different ways, you know, and actually, the way in which he talks about dreams and sleep that all of a sudden you start identifying with it, and the miniaturizing of, of that, that figure, which was something that was really alive in Elizabeth and literature at the time, you know, this idea of a fairy queen. And, and Shakespeare picks up on that and a few speak in a few places. Obviously, Midsummer Night’s Dream being the most obvious one, but I think that I think so that that speech carries a lot of fantasy and wonder. And, and it is rich poetry. You’re right. It’s not the best poetry in the play. And a lot of people cut it and production because it is quite expensive. is, but it’s also really esoteric for some people, you know, they’re just the audience isn’t gonna get this. Let’s cut this. It doesn’t make sense today. So I see that speech actually cut quite harshly and a lot of cut down pretty short. Yeah, yeah. But it just iconic. Its iconic so you can cut the whole thing. Yeah. Where’s the Queen mad speech?

Traci Thomas 50:22
Yeah, you have to at least to like the first like eight lines and then kinda yeah together. Speaking of cutting Paris, in the end, famously cut from the Baz Luhrmann version, for reasons that I think make a ton of sense. Every time I read it, I forget that I got to do this whole moment with Romeo in Paris because I think of the movie so much. What do you think of the choice to cut Paris from the movie?

Farah Karim-Cooper 50:50
Um so where is he? I haven’t seen the movie for awhile.

Traci Thomas 50:54
So in the, in the play in the play, after Juliet is fake dead, you know, they take her to the tomb. He’s in the tomb. He’s standing over her Romeo comes. And you know, he’s like, I think I hear Romeo and Romeo is like, Who’s this guy, and then they fight and Romeo kills Paris. But in the movie Juliet’s laid out in the big church with all the candles and the flowers, just like in breathtaking imagery. And then Romeo, like, sneaks in and all the helicopters are outside and it’s just the two of them. There is no Paris in there. It’s just the two of them. He is crying over her aggressively hard and his young Leonardo DiCaprio heartthrob anyway. And then he drinks his poison and then collapses as her little fingers are twitching. And she wakes up right when he is dead. And then she like tries to kiss him and then she takes the gun and kills herself. But Paris, just Paul Rudd sorry about it. You gotta go.

Farah Karim-Cooper 51:57
Well, maybe no, but maybe they didn’t. He didn’t want Paul Rudd to get killed. Nobody wants to and Paul Rudd being killed at the time.

Traci Thomas 52:05
We barely knew Paul Rudd Yeah, you may have seen him in class. He wasn’t the Paul read. We know now though. Those are his two best roles coulis Romeo and Juliet.

Farah Karim-Cooper 52:16
I think the effect of that is Romeo’s character. Right? It has it has meaning for his character because it means that he’s not racking up. He’s not becoming a serial killer. In fact, right. Just yesterday, my daughter said Romeo and Hamlet are serial killers. She, I don’t know why you love Shakespeare. Acting by the love

Traci Thomas 52:39
A serial killer. So that’s why we like Shakespeare say Shakespeare is a serial killer. He kills everybody. I mean, in this play, he just tacks on lady Montague. Like by the way, she said.

Farah Karim-Cooper 52:53
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it changes how we view him and you know, he kill kill in Paris, who’s an utterly innocent bystander in this short thing?

Traci Thomas 53:04
Yeah, well, but he also forces the issue. He’s also like, partly to blame for the whole fallout. If he had backed off and not tried to get married to someone, the moment after her cousin dies or whatever, maybe we have enough time to, you know, make it happen. Like he’s a predator still. He wants to marry a 13 year old.

Farah Karim-Cooper 53:24
Yeah. Well, I mean, by our standards, yes, that short tutorial behavior. But I would say that if we don’t if we don’t think about like we do, we know how old Paris’s he’s, we know he’s older. And we know he’s older. But I would say and I’m not saying that, I think he’s the best character in the play. But I would say that I wouldn’t. I never saw him as a predator. Right? I saw him as like, I gotta get a wife because I’ve got a you know, I’ve got to do this thing that I’ve been told I have to do as an aristocrat living in this society in the 16th century. So I’ve got to keep pushing my boat in the direction that I’ve been told it needs to get pushed. And that’s what he’s doing. He’s trying to get good. And he knows that. She’s She doesn’t have any siblings. She has no older brothers. So he’s like, I have got to keep locked this one down. Right. But this is all predatory.

Traci Thomas 54:17
He’s asking her for her money. She’s a young girl. We know he’s older. And also the scene when they meet at fire Lauren cell, and he’s like, Come on, let’s do it. And she’s like, Okay, I gotta pray or whatever. And he’s like, telling me you love me. She’s like, I love my husband. And she’s like that to me. You love me like he’s a little aggressive. I feel like he’s, I think he gets a good edit in the minds of millennials like me, because Paul Rudd played him, but I think in the text, he’s slightly more of an asshole.

Farah Karim-Cooper 54:47
So you would like to have seen him get killed at the end of the Baz Luhrmann?

Traci Thomas 54:52
Well, no, I’m glad he’s on in the scene, because in the Baz Luhrmann, it’s just so much better because because if you get them killed, then Juliet and Romeo aren’t like almost alive at the same moment. Every time I see the basil room and I’m like, they were so close. But in the, in the in the play and you know, there’s time in between you have the whole part where the fryer comes in and it’s like, let me get you to the nunnery, girl. And she’s like, No, I’m gonna stay and kill myself. It’s fine. No big deal. But I do think that parent like, I think a lot of the characters in this play who aren’t Romeo and Juliet, get, I believe the Shakespeare phrase is short shrift. Like they’re there. They don’t get to be like full characters in our imaginations because we’re so focused on Romeo and Juliet. But I do think that there’s like a version of Paris that’s either sort of like a disgusting buffoon kind of guy, or maybe like a bit of a sleazy, you know, money hungry predator. And I think most of the time he ends up kind of just being a guy who delivers a few lines. But there’s definitely like with the right actor, there’s commentary on him, too.

Farah Karim-Cooper 56:03
Yeah, but I think as you say, those characters who are less rounded get Shakespeare leaves that open. Yeah. And so you might see it differently. Like, yeah, I don’t I don’t love Lady Capulet, for example, why not? She? Well, because she’s a horrible mother. Yes. She’s a horrible mother.

Traci Thomas 56:23
But this is why I love her. Like, I love that like, as like, like for an actor. Like I think she’s a great part to play.

Farah Karim-Cooper 56:31
Yeah, so that is the good part. Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. But I I find her there’s some female characters in Shakespeare and and male characters that are conventionally loved that I think I don’t love this person. Why is everybody why does everybody love Portia and Merchant of Venice? She’s Shakespeare’s Karen. I don’t understand what I mean. Yeah. And so, but we seem to think she’s so great, because she gives a good speech about mercy. So yeah, I don’t I don’t love Lady Capulet, because I think that her. That’s my reading of her because, yeah, as a mother of a teenage girl. I’m like, What are you doing, lady?

Traci Thomas 57:13
Yeah.

Farah Karim-Cooper 57:14
So but she’s not demented? She doesn’t have enough dimensionality. Right. For for anything else. But my imagination, I think. Yeah. And I think that’s true for Paris as well. But I hear what you’re saying. I think if you think about it from that perspective, then yeah, maybe if you do draw a line from beginning of his moment to the end, that there is like an aggressiveness there, for sure.

Traci Thomas 57:35
Yeah. And like the way that he’s like, you know, prostrate over her my own state structure, not Shakespeare’s. But like saying how much he loved her at this at the end, or it’s like, we’ve seen none of this. Like, there’s some sort of performance to him. And you know, who else we didn’t talk about at all? Who I’m sort of lukewarm on, but a lot of people also love is the nurse. Yeah, talk to her. What do you make of the nurse?

Farah Karim-Cooper 57:59
I think for me, it always depends on who plays in. So the nurse in the text itself? Yeah, fine. Yeah. You know, that I understand that character. I understand the function she had in Juliet’s life that she was the soft place to fall that Juliet had growing up, because her mother certainly didn’t fill that role. And so there is a kind of interconnection and interdependence between her and Juliet, that at times seems unhealthy. That’s a very gentle relation. Yeah. But I mean, that was the weirdly, I’m always coming at it as a historian as well, that that was the weird relationship that you know, aristocratic girls had with their nurses, or the gentle women who were attending on them that were, that knew their most intimate secrets and have their most, you know, dress them and bathe them and did everything with them. And so there’s a kind of truth and repository that she is for Juliet’s entire being, in some ways, so yeah, that can be seen from a modern perspective as 100% unhealthy, but depending on who plays her, I’ve seen her played in a way that’s made me rich at the nurse and her overbearing interventional behavior, the confusion that she causes when she seems to be really supportive of Julia, and then all of a sudden says, Just do what your parents tell you to do. Yeah, but you do get that insight into how she has been treated and how she might be treated by the house by the farmer. And so that will have an impact on her on her behavior, but I do yeah, for me, so much of it is about how actors get inside those those characters.

Traci Thomas 59:48
Yeah, I think that’s true, especially with this play, because so many of us know it so well. And we’ve been taught it and we’ve seen it that it’s like, it’s hard. It’s hard to sometimes imagine People are performing it in a way that isn’t a way that you’ve seen it or thought of it in your own brain. But I’m lukewarm on the nurse. But also, I could be swayed by a great performance.

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:00:11
Great performance. But what do you like? What was when you first were taught this play? What will you talk about the nurse? Because I know that I’ve had teachers. Yeah, I think it’s really interesting, because I had teachers who just kind of said, This is what these are, what the words mean? Yeah. Here’s the dictionary. Here’s a quiz, take a quiz. And nobody’s really give giving out you know, this is how you should read the nurse. Actually, this is this is a villain. This is a hero.

Traci Thomas 1:00:41
I wasn’t taught that. Yeah, I was never taught to really make sense of her what to do with her, I think probably more so than any of the other characters in the play. I think yeah, like, in the way that it was taught. I think the all the boyfriends Romeo in all his girlfriend’s was definitely taught. Like, because those early scenes, I feel like those early scenes that like play on the Feud, like the first street fight and whatever, those scenes got a lot of attention.

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:01:09
And I feel like they’re dangerous. They’re the play opens with danger.

Traci Thomas 1:01:14
Right, right. But like, scope of the actual plot of the story, you sort of get that information almost from the prologue, right. Like we know, they hate each other, there’s blood in the streets, things are bad. But we spend so much time on that part of the feud. When really, like, the only other time the feud comes up is like with Tibble, and copula and Capulets. Like, whatever. It’s fine, you guys. And I sort of wonder, like, again, to the idea of like, adults behaving badly, I sort of wonder if Capulet and Montague could have just probably squashed it at this point. They’re both old like they’re in their 50s or 60s.

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:01:52
That’s the whole of it. Yeah, but I think that’s the whole point about the legacy.

Traci Thomas 1:01:57
A few, right? No, I agree. I think it’s the point of it. I guess I’m what I’m saying is like in an alternate universe, it sort of feels like there’s a world where they could just be like, Oh, our kids really like each other. Like, let’s just be cool. Oh, yeah. involved, because they ever at the end? Yeah. Like, they actually don’t really care anymore. Like, they’re like, we’re old men. We don’t really care. But the whole mantle of the fighting has been passed to the next generation. And I think like, Yeah, but again, that is to that idea of like, adults behaving badly if they had been better adults, and had said, like, you know, what, we got to squash this, like, people are dying. This is silly in that first scene with the friends, if they had agreed to just be cool. Like, you know, there is no play. But also, that’s a lesson too on. You know, who’s in charge here? I think that’s like, the big question of the day. For me, sometimes it’s like, who’s pulling the strings? Like, who’s setting all of this in motion? It’s really the adults around the kid. It’s not the kids. They’re their ideas. Like, we love each other. And then fireworks is like, get married, it’ll fix it. Like, okay, great. And then the dad’s like, No, you gotta get married to this person. And then he’s like, Well check this fake point. Like, it’s like, the adults are constantly moving them around. And they’re sort of just like, we want to make out and, like, do poems at each other?

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:03:13
I think it’s. Well, I have a couple thoughts about what you just said. So I think I think that going back to the idea of the early scene and the fights on the street, I think that’s important. I think that content is really important. I think it sets things up. That creates a dangerous context for an incredibly volatile you love. And I think that tension that you talked about earlier, yeah, it’s part of that volatility, it fuels that volatility. And without that, the play just doesn’t have pace and doesn’t have energy, and you’re ready to have that. Do you find yourself at me, you know, you’ve you’ve got to have that sort of in your face kind of stuff. Right. And that’s the bit that a lot of the productions that kind of look at street crime, and that tried to get kids sort of thinking about the dangers of, of knife crime or gun gun violence, etc. That’s a really great space for those kinds of explorations as well. But then, you were talking about what was the about point?

Traci Thomas 1:04:23
Adults? Like, pulling the strings?

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:04:27
Yeah. And I think they absolutely are. They’re absolutely pulling the strings. And I think that’s what’s under the microscope in the play is the methodology. As I was saying earlier, what is your relationship to your children, and Shakespeare’s time it was about it was punitive. And, you know, I remember doing research on on an adolescence in the 16th century, was there such a thing as adolescence, and they didn’t identify it as a particular time, but there are there’s lots of sort of commentary at the time about how there’s a state were, you know, young people were kids become are becoming adults. And they go through this sort of recalcitrant phase or stubborn phase and that kind of language is used a lot to describe them. I also discovered that teenage suicide was pretty common. And really see in Century England, yeah, yeah. And there was a lot of fear, like being afraid of your parents was a very common thing like absolute terror. Right? One boy, a story I read about one boy actually killed himself, he jumped into the river and drowned because he’d stolen something. And he didn’t want his parents, his father to find out. So he killed himself because he’d rather kill himself and face the wrath of his father. So it was one of those societies in which you were constantly being punished. And violence was part of that punishment.

Traci Thomas 1:05:53
That’s so interesting. Okay, we’re sort of out of time. I do want to ask you, normally, we talked about the title in the cover, but because there’s so many covers, and so many versions of this play, and the title feels it males that think It’s spot on. I want to ask you just to gush a little bit about this play. Do you have a favorite scene? Character speech? Anything like that, like that, for you really is like the best of this play?

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:06:29
Oh, God. Yes. I think it’s when he first sees her. I mean, it’s such a cliche, I’m such a cliche, but it’s only because of the Zeffirelli film. And that moment when he sees her and I guess, the Lurman film does it to just the beauty. And it just captures me, because I’m a romantic and I believe so very deeply in that kind of love. And I’ve experienced I experienced in my relationship that I’m in now love at first sight. Like, absolutely saw him and I just knew I was gonna marry that man. And I just, you know, I didn’t think it was something that was real. But Romeo and Juliet capture that for me in that moment when they first see each other. It’s so beautiful. And it is something that you know, if I, if I watched that Zeffirelli film, it makes me weep when I see it, because it’s so it’s something we all well, I can’t say everybody wants it, but I always wanted it when I was a young girl.

Traci Thomas 1:07:38
Yeah, I’m a cliche of myself, and I love violence and death and sad things. What is your moment, but I do love the balcony scene. I do really love the balcony scene. And I always thought that my favorite part of the play was the Gallop apace speech that Juliet delivers. Before she, it’s before she finds out that Romeo is banished. And then in that scene she finds out. And then the speech at the end is the banished speech that she does. And this time around the banish speech. I read it like five times, I thought it was phenomenal. And it had never really triggered anything in me previously. And this time around, there was something about the balance of the banish speech. And the Gallop apace speech, like the bookends of this scene. That just really, I mean, I just think she’s such a great character. I think she’s one of Shakespeare’s best women, woman characters. I think that she is. Yeah, she just has so many great speeches. She’s so smart. She’s so like, analytical, she’s weighing her options. She’s always asking like the right questions of people. She’s like, I just, I love her.

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:08:51
When I was writing my book, you know, I wrote about her that speech on her own tonight. And actually, that speech is phenomenal. And I feel like every time I’ve read this play, I’ve rediscovered something that you just really made me think about that. In terms of like, right now, this speech means this to me. Yeah. But I really think you’re talking about how amazing Juliet is. I wanted to recommend a book, which you may be aware of, which is Sophie Duncan’s book called searching for Juliet. I don’t know what it just came out this year. Okay. It’s, if you love Juliet, you’ll love this book, because she talks about the way Juliet has been sort of romanticized and how creepy it’s been and productions and movies. Sophie is a kind of Rolodex of all the productions and film versions. So she that it’s a really, really great piece in to read alongside this play.

Traci Thomas 1:09:49
Okay, I love it. I have one last quick question that will be done. Does this entire play take place in a week? less than less than right? It’s like a like a Saturday to a Thursday-

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:10:01
I think it’s just two and a half days. It’s not even that much. I might have that wrong. I need to go back but I get-

Traci Thomas 1:10:10
Yeah. Well, I think so. Go ahead. I think it’s Saturday they meet Sunday they get married. Sunday night. Everyone’s killed it. Monday. It because the dads like well what’s the day after or whatever and they’re like Wednesday and they’re like, Okay, well, let’s do Thursday, but then they bump it back up to Wednesday. Yes. So I the only place I was unclear was whether When Romeo actually makes it to the tomb. Is it later on Wednesday? Or is it moved over to Thursday?

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:10:39
But it could be the wee hours of Thursday? Yeah, it’s it’s just literally a few days and nobody sleeps? No. Nobody sleeps?

Traci Thomas 1:10:45
Well. Well, Romeo and Juliet fall asleep for a moment so that they can wake up to say is it the nine gal or the lark, but other than that, everyone’s up all night. Fair. This was so awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. I’m just so happy we have to do Shakespeare more on this show because I this is such a joy for me. Thank you.

Farah Karim-Cooper 1:11:06
Next one Titus. Next one Titus.

Traci Thomas 1:11:08
Oh, I’d love to do that. I think Titus was on my list. Definitely come back into Titus. I love love. We’ll do the violent one. The destruction one. Everyone you can get Farah’s book The Great White Bard wherever you get your books. I’m sure you can also get a copy of Romeo and Juliet there if you’ve never read it. Thank you so much Farah and everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Alright, y’all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. Another year of the Stacks episode is in the books. Thank you to Farah Karim-Cooper for returning to the show. And thank you again to Julia Rickard for helping to make this conversation possible. And now it is time for our big announcement. Our first book club pick for the year 2024 is going to be the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, you might be familiar with Percival Everett because we did one of his books, The Trees a few years back, and this one eraser is a satirical take on race in the publishing world. It also was just turned into the movie American fiction written and directed by Cord Jefferson. We’re going to discuss the book on January 31st And you have to listen on January 3rd to find out who our guest will be for that episode. If you love the show, and you want insight access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks and joined the stacks pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you’re listening through Apple podcasts, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from the stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram, Threads and tik tok and at thestackspod underscore on Twitter. And you can of course check out our website the stackspodcast.com Today’s episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin MacWrite. The Stacks is created and produced by me Traci Thomas.

Cherie Marquez https://www.cmediacollective.com/
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Ep. 298 The Best Books of 2023 with MJ Franklin and Adam Vitcavage