Here’s a hot take for you:
I know it’s fun and edgy to say that if Romeo and Juliet had lived they would have had a miserable marriage but I super disagree.
They share a poetic, romantic sensibility that no one else in the entire play has. Everyone else is either bawdy (Nurse), or witty (Mercutio, Benvolio), or practical (mom and dad Capulet, Rosaline - even though she never appears). Romeo and Juliet, however, experience their feelings at 11 without judging themselves. They are incredibly present and self-aware about their feelings, and they are the only two people in the play that are the same level of Extra, and that’s what they immediately recognize in each other.
They have fun together in a way that is more in line with Shakespeare’s comedy couples than his tragedy couples. They tease each other and play word games even in dire circumstances. They balance each other’s idiosyncrasies and compliment one another’s senses of humor.
But most importantly, it’s a matter of “What’s the Stronger Choice?”
Which I’m constantly harping on about. It’s sad if two people die young. It’s devastating to witness the deaths of two people about to share a beautiful life-long love.
You have to make the audience believe that they are perfectly suited (and Shakespeare does help you with that). You’re making for a lukewarm production if you dull the tragedy by letting the audience walk away thinking: “oh well. It never would have worked anyway.”
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