romeo and juliet

We have all seen this play a hundred times before, so for Angela Chaplin to get someting new from this production at the Hayman was bound to be difficult, but with Emily Brennan as Juliet she did just that. Juliet was portrayed as the very young innocent teenager that she was, fawning, giggly, with a big crush on her cousin Romeo - Ian Meadows. With very strong perfomances from the leads and Zilla Turner - the nurse, Renato Fabretti - Mercutio and Crispian Chan as Tybalt the show flowed nicely.

The presentation was superb, with excellent lighting and a simple but very effective set.

I must agree with you on your stand-out performers, Gordon, and may I add to that list Lucy Waldron-Brown as Friar Lawrence and especially Nick Christo as Montague. Is there nothing that bastard can't do?! He had about four lines and IMHO stole the show with his unsurpassed connection to the text and to the other performers on stage. (PS Is Romeo really Juliet's cousin!? That's a perverse twist that I'm not familiar with...)

However, there were a few disturbing and repeated mis-pronunciations that I feel must be noted:

'doth' and 'troth' - neither of these words should rhyme with 'broth'. 'Doth', if we're speaking phonetically is pronounced 'duth' and 'throth' should rhyme with 'growth'.

'e'er' - is a truncated version of 'ever' and is accordingly pronounced 'air'. Occaisionally it was correctly pronounced but there were several 'ears' on stage.

'demesnes' - is, quite simply, DOMAINS, not de-mez-knees

'withal' - as a friend who saw the show with me said, 'Who's Al?' Pronunciation is 'with-all' not 'with-Al'.

'Zounds' - short for 'God's wounds' and should be pronounced 'zoonds' not 'zownds'.

Call me anal, and believe me no one knows that better than I, but Shakespeare is, above all, language driven (back me up here, Malone), and I wasn't the only person twitching slightly with each mispronunciation. They disrupted an otherwise polished production.

[%sig%]

Amanda Chesterton wrote:
> Shakespeare is, above all, language driven (back me up
> here, Malone), and I wasn't the only person twitching
> slightly with each mispronunciation. They disrupted an
> otherwise polished production.
>



I am a spelling Nazi, and I hate
When I hear people mispronounciate.



Cheers,
crgWllmShkspr

I too am a member of the spelling and grammar police, and must defend the spelling of my friend (and fan - cheers Chesterton):

"pronounce
pronouncing
pronouncedly
pronouncement...

proNUNciate
proNUNciational

(mis)proNUNciation: the act or the reult of producing sounds of speech, including articulation, vowel and consonant formation, accent, inflection and intonation, often with reference to the correctness or acceptability of the speech sounds"

Hamlyn Encyclopedic World Dictionary - English/Australian

LucyWB wrote:
>
> I too am a member of the spelling and grammar police, and
> must defend the spelling of my friend (and fan - cheers
> Chesterton):
>
> "pronounce
> pronouncing
> pronouncedly
> pronouncement...
>
> proNUNciate
> proNUNciational
>
> (mis)proNUNciation: the act or the reult of producing
> sounds of speech, including articulation, vowel and consonant
> formation, accent, inflection and intonation, often with
> reference to the correctness or acceptability of the speech
> sounds"





Hi Lucy

I've had this conversation privately with Amanda; I wasn't taking the piss out of her and I'm glad she was taking the Shakespearean pronunciation to task (after all, the same director is about to produce the same play professionally next month..!!)


I reassured Amanda her spelling of 'mispronunciation' was entirely correct (although I would like to take it up with whoever invented our twisted language).


My spelling of "mispronounciate" in that little iambic couplet is neither here nor there, it just needed to scan. The humorous intention of my perhaps too subtle 'spelling nazi' joke was...there's no such word. (It should be 'mispronounce'.)



Cheers,
crgWllmShkspr

[%sig%]

Amanda Chesterton wrote:
>
> However, there were a few disturbing and repeated
> mis-pronunciations that I feel must be noted:
>
> 'doth' and 'troth' - neither of these words should rhyme with
> 'broth'. 'Doth', if we're speaking phonetically is
> pronounced 'duth' and 'throth' should rhyme with 'growth'.
>
> 'e'er' - is a truncated version of 'ever' and is accordingly
> pronounced 'air'. Occaisionally it was correctly pronounced
> but there were several 'ears' on stage.
>
> 'demesnes' - is, quite simply, DOMAINS, not de-mez-knees
>
> 'withal' - as a friend who saw the show with me said, 'Who's
> Al?' Pronunciation is 'with-all' not 'with-Al'.
>
> 'Zounds' - short for 'God's wounds' and should be pronounced
> 'zoonds' not 'zownds'.
>
> Call me anal, and believe me no one knows that better than I,
> but Shakespeare is, above all, language driven (back me up
> here, Malone), and I wasn't the only person twitching
> slightly with each mispronunciation. They disrupted an
> otherwise polished production.




I am quoting Amanda's review of the Curtin Uni 'R & J', of a month or so ago, to which I responded that I hoped these problems would be solved, seeing as the same director was to be in charge of the King's Park professional production.

I've not yet seen the Park production, but I have it on good authority that a lot of the same mangling of the language occurred, and rather spoilt some of the show for those people who take notice of such things.

I don't claim to be any authority on Shakespeare, but I would find it very easy to consult with people who ARE. Granted, there are a lot of people who go to the Park productions who know or care very little about the language, and so enjoy the show regardless. But being Shakespeare, there are obviously many who will attend with a good grasp of what's going on, and it seems rather silly to earn their disdain when it's a problem that could have been solved a long time ago with fairly little effort.


Hoping to go and judge with my own ears this week.

Cheers,
Craig

[%sig%]

Hi Craig! Did you go and see R&J - any review for us? Congratulations on your wonderful performance in On Our Selection - there were a few shining gems in the show.

Talei Howell-Price wrote:
>
> Hi Craig! Did you go and see R&J - any review for us?
> Congratulations on your wonderful performance in On Our
> Selection - there were a few shining gems in the show.


Hi Talei

No, haven't had a chance yet, too busy getting this show up and running. Thanks for the nice comment....we're having fun and the audiences seem to be generally enjoying it and going away having had a decent laugh.
I'm intending to get to R&J on one of our Mondays off...where better place to go on your night off after a week of performing in a park by the river than to see another crowd do a performance in a park by the river?

Cheers,
Craig

I’m trying to recollect if ‘Bill’ put on any plays
where a Geordie dialect could have been used, for that of the characters, which is more of a truer Anglo-Saxon accent, than that found at Southwalk, pronounced So'thwaak, at that time.
Therefore are we not putting a "StrineÂ’lish" strangle hold on it? With what we think it should soond like?
Noo waa hinny! ahdiv’t na’h ‘boot ‘t, - But ‘t myt torn oot a cuddy of n’aaf’l r’ng culaa? kidaa!

Q: if yÂ’waakÂ’t Waaka,
bykÂ’t Byka,
w’t y’dee ‘t Waals’nd?

A: Faal off!

Excuse my anglish! ItÂ’s been a "vury lang" tyme!
I hope this helps?
"Chookas"

GAAFA

Sory!!!

I had a spelling mistake - "vury" should have been "V'ry" but pronounced - Vuhrry.
Methinks rests right!
Chookas

Joe