Romeo and Juliet is the most produced, translated and re-mixed of all of Shakespeare's plays. This volume takes up the iconographic, linguistic and performance layers already at work within it and tracks the play's dispersal into neighbouring art forms – including ballet, opera, television and architecture – and geographical locations, including Italy, Ireland, France, India and Korea. Chapters trace Shakespeare's own acts of adaptation and appropriation of sources and the play's subsequent migrations into other media. Part One considers reworkings of Romeo and Juliet in Hector Berlioz's 1839 choral symphony and ballets choreographed by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and John Neumeier. Part Two explores the afterlives of Shakespeare's lovers in the narrative forms of fiction, film and serial television, including works by James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and HBO's series Westworld. Part Three examines dramatic adaptations of the play into other languages, dialects and cultural contexts. Authors consider Hindi translations and the complex and changing status of Shakespeare's work in India, as well as productions of the play in Korea set against its evolving history. The volume ends with a first-person account of staging Romeo and Juliet at an HBCU (historically Black college/university), documenting the tensions between the notion of Shakespeare as a universal author and the lived experiences of marginalized communities as they engage with his plays.

Romeo and Juliet is the most produced, translated and re-mixed of all of Shakespeare's plays. This volume takes up the iconographic, linguistic and performance layers already at work within it and tracks the play's dispersal into neighbouring art forms – including ballet, opera, television and architecture – and geographical locations, including Italy, Ireland, France, India and Korea. Chapters trace Shakespeare's own acts of adaptation and appropriation of sources and the play's subsequent migrations into other media. Part One considers reworkings of Romeo and Juliet in Hector Berlioz's 1839 choral symphony and ballets choreographed by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and John Neumeier. Part Two explores the afterlives of Shakespeare's lovers in the narrative forms of fiction, film and serial television, including works by James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and HBO's series Westworld. Part Three examines dramatic adaptations of the play into other languages, dialects and cultural contexts. Authors consider Hindi translations and the complex and changing status of Shakespeare's work in India, as well as productions of the play in Korea set against its evolving history. The volume ends with a first-person account of staging Romeo and Juliet at an HBCU (historically Black college/university), documenting the tensions between the notion of Shakespeare as a universal author and the lived experiences of marginalized communities as they engage with his plays.

A refreshing contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy In an exclusive boys' boarding school, where students are forbidden to read Romeo & Juliet, four students put on a secret production of the play which brings violence, betrayal, lust, love and mortality into their own lives. "This is a thrilling piece of work, both study aid and gripping theatre" John Peter, The Sunday Times "I'd forgotten the play could be so good. I seemed to hear the words for the first time" Jeremy Kingston, The Times "Prepare for a bracing and brilliant shock to the system...;an inspired new theatrical take on this early masterpiece" Paul Taylor, IndependentThis award-winning play, which ran for a year in New York, is published to tie in with the Arts Theatre, London run in early September 2003

Exploring a selection of anime adaptations of famous works of both Eastern and Western provenance, this book is concerned with appreciating their significance and appeal as independent texts. The author evaluates three aspects of anime adaptation--how anime adaptations develop their original sources in stylistic, aesthetic, and psychological terms; how specific features of the anime medium impact alchemically on the original sources to bring into being imaginative works of an autonomous nature; and which qualities render an adaptation in anime form a distinctly unique artistic creation.

Since the 1990s, the expropriation of canonical works of cinema has been a fundamental dimension of art-film exploration. Rainer Werner Fassbinder provides an early model of open adaptation of film classics, followed ever more boldly by the Coen Brothers, Chantal Akerman, Alex Carax, Todd Haynes, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Baz Luhrmann, and Olivier Assayas. This book devotes chapters to each of these directors to examine how their films redeploy landmark precursors such as City Lights (1931), Citizen Kane (1941), Rome Open City (1945), All About Eve (1950), and Vertigo (1958) in order to probe our psychological, philosophical, and historical situations in a postmodern société du spectacle. In broadly diverse ways, each of these directors complicates received notions of the past and its representation, while probing the transformative media evolution and dislocation of the present, in film art and in society.

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young Italian star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers. Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. The text of the first quarto version was of poor quality, however, and later editions corrected the text to conform more closely with Shakespeare's original. Shakespeare's use of his poetic dramatic structure (especially effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of sub-plots to embellish the story) has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play. Romeo and Juliet has been adapted numerous times for stage, film, musical, and opera venues. During the English Restoration, it was revived and heavily revised by William Davenant. David Garrick's 18th-century version also modified several scenes, removing material then considered indecent, and Georg Benda's Romeo und Julie omitted much of the action and used a happy ending. Performances in the 19th century, including Charlotte Cushman's, restored the original text and focused on greater realism. John Gielgud's 1935 version kept very close to Shakespeare's text and used Elizabethan costumes and staging to enhance the drama. In the 20th and into the 21st century, the play has been adapted in versions as diverse as George Cukor's 1936 film Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version Romeo and Juliet, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet. (wikipedia.org)

Over four hundred years after it was first published, Romeo and Juliet remains one of Shakespeare’s most famous and most frequently performed plays. During the late 1500s many playwrights loved to base their plays off of Italian stories, and Shakespeare was no different; he was heavily influenced by the Italian tale “The Goodly History of the True and Constant Love of Romeo and Juliett.” Today Romeo and Juliet continues to spread its influence within literature and performing arts. It has been adapted into 24 operas, numerous films, a ballet, and has also been referenced in law. The play has entertained generations with its romance, deception, revenge, sword-fighting, creative verse, comedic relief, and tragic fate. The prologue lays before us the fate of our star-crossed lovers: two Italian households have a long, ongoing vendetta against each other, kept under control only by Prince Escalus, the ruler of Verona. Romeo meets with his friends Benvolio and Mercutio after having his heart broken by Rosaline. Encouraged to find love elsewhere, Mercutio sneaks him into one of Capulet’s masked parties, where he encounters Juliet, Capulet’s daughter. This is the beginning of a love affair that is destined to end in tragedy. This Standard Ebooks edition is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.