Red VS. Blue! Which side are you on?

I thought it would be interesting to set Romeo and Juliet either in a mansion or castle. Upon entry, audience members would choose Red or Blue. Depending on their decision, a Montague or Capulet would then lead that person either to the west wing or the east wing. While in their perspective wings, audience members would witness and participate in the scenes that only consisted of one particular party. All scenes where Capulets and Montagues interacted, or crossed paths, both parties would be led to the grand hall to witness and participate in the madness. To maybe push it further, I would play with the idea of having Romeo and Juliet pull members aside and only tell them their own personal private thoughts, and when Romeo and Juliet would sneak off together, they would only take a few people with them in a secluded room in the mansion or castle. If the rights allowed to manipulate the script, maybe the audience could choose to stop certain events from happening, or at least try to intervene and maybe be killed (not literally) or led out the building.


I feel this would be a great way to get more people excited about Shakespeare.  It could also benefit people who have watched and read this play a million times by giving them a new way to experience the story. The use of space would cause the parties of each household, audience included, to really engage in the story and pick sides; allowing them the ability to feel there actions and opinions do effect the outcome.

Would the actors allow someone to stop Romeo from killing himself and explain Juliet is still alive?
Could a member of the audience jump in the way so they are "killed" instead of Mercutio or Tibalt?
During the ball scene, would people gang up on Romeo and stop him from getting to Juliet?

All this reminds me of the choose your own adventure books I read in 3rd grade.
Obviously, if this were to become a thing, the director should make the ultimate decision as to choose to either guide the audience along, or actually allow them to intervene.

Do I agree with Kantor's view that the theatre is the least appropriate site for drama to be materialized? I'm not quite sure. He does make a good point that when we don't expect things to happen that that's when they undoubtably do. However, wouldn't that be all the more reason to believe that it can be shown through theatre. We learn throughout this course how vast theatre is, and that it comes in many many forms. So I would say that theatre is the MOST appropriate for well... almost anything, if not everything.

Nothing Is Ever Black and White

This idea goes back to the first class we had when Dr. Fletcher asked us what Theatre was. Many of us had very different answers, yet all were correct. Because, theatre cannot be defined as just one thing. Performance Art is a great mediator that shows us this. In itself, it has various different forms, interpretations, messages, and goals. I would agree, however, that with technology, society, and now, social media, performers are constancy evolving and creating new acts/art that we can relate to, dive into, and possibly change based on the "norms" of now. This gives it potential to in a sense, dilute itself and possibly lose its artistic expression. Though, I do believe if it came to that, artists would then revert back to what it was before to then change the "norm" again, and it would become this sort of cycle of art. 

When it comes to "imagined memory", I couldn't think of something very recent, so I reverted to my years as a wee little lad. When I was very young, about 5 or 6, I would watch The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, The Legend of Zoro, The Lone Ranger, and many other black and white films and television shows. For some reason, I believed that at a certain point in time, everything was black and white, and by some miraculous phenomenon humans discovered color. I was obviously taught otherwise shortly after, but it made me realize that because of what I saw on television, and the VHS tapes of recorded family memories (all in black and white), it almost seemed natural to think that things used to be that way. It was then very cool to learn that we always saw color, and the camera technology from back then could not produce color, rather than the human eye.