Word: juliet
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...though still much in evidence; the Mannerist style was in full swing; and the Baroque style was in its vigorous infancy. Thus it is that Shakespeare's output reflects all three styles: in the tragedies, for example, Othello is Baroque, Hamlet and King Lear are Mannerist, and Romeo and Juliet is Renaissance...
Among the Renaissance characteristics are balance and symmetry, which Romeo and Juliet has in superabundance. An early member of the canon and only the author's second attempt at tragedy, the play is at times literarily self-conscious and structurally too obvious in its symmetrical balance. Every idea has its complement: love vs. hate, day vs. night, patience vs. impetuosity, chastity vs. bawdry, and so on. Every character has its foil: Romeo and Mercutio, Juliet and Roasline, Benvolio and Tybalt, Friar Laurence and the Nurse. If it is not a supreme achievement, it is still a great play...
...heroine of the play is surely the most captivating one Shakespeare ever created. And every actress wants a crack at the part at some time in her career. The American Shakespeare Festival is lucky to be enjoying the services of Inga Swenson; her Juliet is by far the greatest asset of this production, and, indeed, the finest Juliet I have ever seen...
...sure, Miss Swenson does not give us precisely the Juliet that the playwright intended: a nymphet not yet quite fourteen years old. But this is a Juliet we shall probably never see, until perhaps someone revives Shakespeare's practice of having his heroines played by young boys. Miss Swenson is, I should guess, twice Juliet's age; yet she gives us a Juliet who is clearly a teenager, and that is in itself a rare achievement. She underscores the impression with occasional youthful bits of business, such as tossing her breviary up in the air and catching it again...
...within him, though. His diction is clear. He has no trouble making Romeo young enough--and young he must be: Romeo matures a little during the play's course, but he never does become a man. At present, however, Easton's Romeo is not enough in love--either with Juliet or with the words he speaks...