Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

In our extended celebration of St. Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet! This play has been performed countless times and has been reinterpreted in opera and ballet.

Here’s the text, with side-by-side translation from Elizabethan to today’s English: Romeo and Juliet Translation | Shakescleare, by LitCharts

Here’s a stage performance: Romeo and Juliet – Christopher Neame – Ann Hasson – Clive Swift – Multiple Subtitles – 1976 – 4K

The authorship of the Shakespeare plays has long been debated, for various reasons, by really intelligent people, including Mark Twain.  One interesting theory is that the real author of the plays was a “black” Italian Jewish woman who was the mistress of the man in charge of the King’s Players. She was in the right place, at the right time, and had the right language skills (and knowledge of Italy) to have written the plays: John Hudson Introduces The Dark Lady Discovery