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Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0200.  Friday, 10 March 1995.
 
(1)     From:   Juliet A. Youngren <jayoungr@prairienet.org>
        Date:   Thursday, 9 Mar 1995 23:39:41 -0600 (CST)
        Subj:   Romeo & Juliet 5.3
 
(2)     From:   Bill Dynes <Dynes@Gandlf.UIndy.Edu>
        Date:   Friday, March 10, 1995
        Subj:   Zefferelli's *Romeo and Juliet*
 
 
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Juliet A. Youngren <jayoungr@prairienet.org>
Date:           Thursday, 9 Mar 1995 23:39:41 -0600 (CST)
Subject:        Romeo & Juliet 5.3
 
About the poison--a couple of possibilities suggest themselves.  I agree that
Shakespeare probably didn't intend for Romeo to eat an undiluted powder
onstage.  It was someone else who suggested he probably skipped the dilution
part.  But it does offer a possible explanation as to why he was holding a cup
instead of a vial:  he followed the apothecary's instructions and poured the
powder into a drink.
 
Now, I'll grant that it would be very hard to stage it that way: what's he
going to carry the drink in?.  My second (probably more likely) theory, and
what I was thinking when I wrote the original message, was that Shakespeare
wrote the bit about pouring the poison into a drink with Brooke's poem in front
of him, envisioning it as a powder at that point.  (Though calling it a
"cordial" later in the scene does seem to suggest liquid.) Then he got to 5.3
and decided it should be a liquid after all.
 
Juliet Youngren
 
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Bill Dynes <Dynes@Gandlf.UIndy.Edu>
Date:           Friday, March 10, 1995
Subject:        Zefferelli's *Romeo and Juliet*
 
I've used selections from the film in my undergraduate class with substantial
success.  *RJ* is the first of the plays I teach in the semester, and the film,
after a couple of day's discussion, helps students get past some of the hurdles
that the play-as-text presents.  IUve also appreciated its liveliness and
energy; it successfully presents the play as drama rather than a collection of
lines to be recited with rhetorical flourish.  BTW, I thought the film of
*Hamlet* with Mel Gibson was successful in similarly limited ways, and have
used scenes from that film, juxtaposed with Olivier, as well.

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