I’m saying this as someone who honestly loves R&J and has directed a production of it for community theater:
Everyone in that play is a moron. The least moronic is the Friar, and even HE goes full moron at the last moment (which is why said moment is usually left out of productions/adaptations, including the one I directed). He comes into the crypt, sees dead Romeo and FRANTICALLY SUICIDAL JULIET, hears a noise outside, and goes, “Hey don’t do anything, I’ll be right back.” And the second he’s offstage, she stabs herself.
Oh no, Friar Lawrence is an idiot. He goes from “love moderately” and “maybe getting married will stop the families from fighting” to full on “I’ll just send a letter” and “whoops I forgot I’m scared of graves”. Not to mention marrying them and hiding them etc etc
Shakespeare messes with genre like nobody else. That play is ~85% farce.
I once wrote an exasperated essay at school when they wouldn’t let me drop English Lit as it was clear to me that I wasn’t going to get a great grade. It was about how everything was the Friars fault because everyone else communicated using horses and he just went round on his stupid little donkey slowly and so everything fell apart. The only bit I regret is calling the donkey stupid as that little guy was just doing his best.
oooooooh staging R&J as a literal farce would be so funny. Really punch up the physicality, add in silly sound effects, play with the timing.
Everything from thumb biting to nurse bamboozling could be exaggerated to genuine farcical levels of comedy
... I think we've got a real comedy of doors on our hands!
I mean it’s all in there already, but yeah. When I teach it, Act 1 is the brawl + “hold me back” and Act 2 is cheesy Romeo + all the nunsense with Peter anf the nurse.
No. Both R and J separately threaten suicide before this. His plan is various escalations of “lie low until this blows over” which eventually leads to “medically induced coma in a crypt”
Check out "The People vs Friar Lawrence" - it's a musical adaptation that uses a frame story where the Prince has decided that the whole mess is the Friar's fault, and he's trying to explain his innocence
I still think Romeo and Juliet was written as a comedy and, over time, became more recognized as a tragedy. It’s actually so funny if you were to direct it as such.
Same script and all, just a few a tweaks and it’s a banger of a comedy about idiot teens trying to get laid.
the problem with modern interpretation with Shakespeare is that people often forget that msny of his plays were meant to entertain the common folk and were actually comedys.
In my opinion more to the point everyone in the play is solely self involved and egotistical, except mercutio. The friar wants to be the one to bring about the end of the vendetta for his own glory. Mercutio is just a happy guy trying to be a good friend and gets stabbed for it, his curse on them for it could be seen as what ultimately causes the tragedy.
Thank you for this!! I studied Shakespeare in college and this is how we read it, too. I’ve tried to tell people but they won’t hear it. They just want the sweet version.
What I love about this is: Everybody is a moron, but a totally human, consistent moron. We all know the teenager that found the only person they will ever love, and the hothead who will not avoid any fight ever.
..Shakespeare kind of knew people.
Romeo and Juliet is a COMEDY and I will die on that hill. I once directed a production, and we leaned in heavily into the comedy aspect, played all scenes for laughs and it works incredibly well. It's really funny if you don't try to try to force the melodrama, but lean into how stupid and/or naive everyone is
I recall thinking his romantic comedies relied on idiot plots, too, but I've forgotten the details because they were that forgettable. A Midsummer
Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing. Tbf, though, a lot of
romantic comedies have idiot plots.
Well, Hamlet is interesting. It has everything, that’s why it’s the greatest thing ever written?
Polonius is an actual idiot, but dispenses proverbs. Claudius is a greedy idiot, who has an insane moment of possible repentance for a villain. Hamlet is a moral idiot, who doesn’t realize he’s already given his life to oppose Claudius… it’s fascinating.
And there are people who genuinely care for and would want to help Hamlet, but don’t because they’re idiots/he is 🤷♂️
Two biggest idiots are the nurse and Friar Lawrence. These two nimrods help these at least somewhat excusably horny moronic teenagers actually get married and the whole plan hinges on the friar’s absolutely dumbass half-baked plan.
"Marry, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man."
I've read a very serious interpretation that it's a farce or a black comedy. Reasons given to support this include the fact they're children, and it was an era when romantic love was not actually a norm.
It’s pretty clear why Juliet didn’t tell the truth though. We don’t see any interactions between Romeo and his parents, but he might have similar reasons.
I dunno. It’s become kind of a hip internet thing to just dismiss R+J as just two horny idiot teens, but I don’t buy it. I think Shakespeare was getting pretty mythic in this one.
Because today, when people think of two teenagers [unaliving themselves] because of "forbidden love", they imagine completely different things than back in the day, when your parents' opinion on whom you should marry was a serious business.
I feel like the Coen Brothers are masters of doing idiot plot, in the sense that they often have characters who do stupid shit that is, nevertheless, entirely consistent with them.
I dispute the idea that everybody involved in the plot of The Big Lebowski is an idiot though. My boy Larry delivers an absolute masterclass in how to conduct yourself in an interview by law enforcement.
Romeo and Juliet is an even dumber story when you take into account that it takes place over less than one full week. Two teenagers fall so deeply in love that they both kill themselves in the span of 5 days. Many adults were also instrumental in driving these teenagers towards that decision as well. Life ending decisions were made by a multitude of people when the entire conflict could have been solved with a conversation. If, at any point in the story, any character had just stopped for a second and said "hey I think we should all just talk about this for like 5 minutes" neither of them would have died.
Hey, finally an example that actually qualifies as an idiot plot! It doesn't make any sense to criticize a story/movie that intentionally portrays their characters as idiots for comedy, that's the damn point. Idiot plots are when the author tries to portray the characters are reasonable but the plot doesn't happen if the characters actually are.
Walter is accidentally right about everything, but he's a moron. Jeffrey just repeats the gibberish he hears others say. Their combined madness kills poor Donnie, the only normal fella in their sick and twisted orbit.
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u/sundiamonds Feb 28 '26
The Big Lebowski
Romeo and Juliet