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.
List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Ariane Helou (California Institute of Technology, USA) and Julia Reinhard Lupton (University of California, USA) Part One: Romeo and Juliet in Music and Dance 1. Juliet’s Vocal Metamorphoses: Transformation and Fidelity from Ovid to Berlioz Ariane Helou (California Institute of Technology, USA) 2. Holy Palmers' Kiss: Love, Trust and Wisdom in John Neumeier's Romeo and Juliet Ballet Jehbreal Muhammad Jackson (Columbia University, USA) and Julia Reinhard Lupton (University of California, USA) 3. A Self by Any Other Name: Five Pas De Deux in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet Laura Levine ( NYU, USA) Part Two: Romeo and Juliet in Narrative Media 4. ‘Cut him out in little stars’: Afterlives of Romeo and Juliet in Early Joyce and Beckett Beryl Schlossman (University of California, USA) 5. Violent Delights and Violent Ends: Fidelity and Technicity in Westworld and Romeo and Juliet Colby Gordon (Bryn Mawr College, USA) 6. Ronnie Khalil’s With A Kiss I Die: Reanimating Shakespeare’s Juliet, Fidelity, Vampires, Time, and Whatever Samuel Kolodezh (CSUN, NYU, UCSD, USA) Part three: Romeo and Juliet in Diaspora 7. Anuvading Romeo: Retelling ‘Love’ in Indian Iterations of Romeo and Juliet Anandi Rao (University of London, UK) 8. Bridging Performance and Philosophy: Romeo and Juliet in Korea Seon Young Jang ( Kongju National University, South Korea) 9. Romeo and Juliet at an Historically Black College/University John ‘Ray’ Proctor (Tulane University, USA) About the Authors Index
Ariane Helou is a scholar of Renaissance literature, a dramaturg and Scientific Writing Specialist at the Beckman Institute, California Institute of Technology, USA. Julia Reinhard Lupton is Professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine, USA.
Reviews for Romeo and Juliet, Adaptation and the Arts: 'Cut Him Out in Little Stars'
Romeo and Juliet, Adaptation and the Arts shows how Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers have unfinished cultural business. From dance and ballet to production case studies, and from Romeo cyborgs in complex TV to vampire Juliets, the volume theorises adaptations as re-constellations, expansions and creative collaborations with Shakespeare. --Stephen O'Neill, Maynooth University, Ireland
