Romeo & Juliet: Text in Performance KS4/5

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In these lessons, students will learn how to respond to the play not just as a piece of writing, but as a piece of drama. Tasks include: an exploration of original practice, including costumes and staging; researching previous productions and adaptations to broaden students' understanding of the text; and a list of practice exam questions with an emphasis on the text in performance.

In order to benefit fully from these lesson plans, we recommend you use them in the following order:

If you would like to teach the play in greater detail, use these advanced KS4/5 Lesson Plans. If students are new to the play, we suggest you start with the introductory KS3 Lesson Plans

These lesson plans are available in the Downloads section at the bottom of this page. To download resources, you must be logged in. Sign up for free to access this and other exclusive featuresActivities mentioned in these resources are available in a separate downloadable 'Student Booklet', also at the bottom of this page. The 'Teachers' Guide' download explains how best to use Teach Shakespeare and also contains a bibliography and appendices referencing the resources used throughout.

Key Questions for Students:

Can I ask questions to help me find out about the new Globe Theatre?

Can I research in detail one way in which the Globe Theatre incorporates original theatre practices in its work?

Key words: archive, authentic, costume, original practices, pronunciation, questions, research, sources, vision

 

Prologue: Opening Discussion

Students should look at the following four images which are included in the Student Booklet: Stephen Fry dressed as Malvolio, and Mark Rylance dressed as Olivia in the 2012 production of Twelfth Night; costumes being fitted backstage before a production of Twelfth Night in 2002; Mark Rylance applying make up backstage; musicians from the 2008 production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Also show the following video, which is a speech from Richard II performed in Original Pronunciation by Ben Crystal.

 

 

 

Students should:

  • describe what is contained in each image and video
  • explain the connection between the images and video

The connection is ‘original theatre practices’. Students could also be asked for their view on whether they feel the things that are pictured are relevant to modern theatre. This question should provoke and set up a debate that will be important to return to in the course of the activities that follow.

 

Enter the Players: Group Tasks

1) In the hotseat

Who was Sam Wanamaker? Why did he want to rebuild a Shakespearean theatre on Bankside? How long did the process take and what hurdles were encountered and overcome along the way? How similar is the new Globe to the original one (building methods, building materials, use of any modern technologies) and how much do we know for certain about the first Globe? Students are going to research Wanamaker and the building of the new Globe Theatre by interviewing 'Sam Wanamaker', who you are going to play. Support students in advance of the interview in their drafting of a variety of questions. The fact sheets on this website and books such as Barry Day’s This Wooden ‘O’: Shakespeare’s Globe Reborn are useful resources for the purposes of your research in preparation for this ‘teacher in role’ activity. Students can also access these fact sheets at home, via the Globe website.

2) Original practices

Show students the definition from the Globe glossary of ‘Original Practices’:

This is a term used to describe a production that explores methods used in Elizabethan or Jacobean theatre. Strictly speaking, the term Original Practices defines a particular approach used by the Globe when Mark Rylance was Artistic Director. Under Dominic’s direction the Globe is continuing to explore some of these techniques.

Some Globe productions have actively sought to follow original Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre practices. These practices include:

  • costume
  • pronunciation
  • use of authentic musical instruments and sound effects
  • all-male companies

Students could choose one of these areas and research it. This research could be used in a class discussion about the value of such practices 400 years later, when language, technology and cultural attitudes are very different. 

 

 

3) Adopt an Actor

Romeo and Juliet has been staged several times at the new Globe since it opened in 1997, with the title roles being played by Kananu Kirimi and Tom Burke (2004), Lorraine Burroughs and James Alexandrou (spring 2009), Ellie Kendrick and Adetomiwa Edun (summer 2009), Jane Anouka and Will Featherstone (2013), and Cassie Layton and Sam Valentine in a touring production (2015). The Ellie Kendrick and Adetomiwa Edun version is available on a Shakespeare’s Globe DVD. Images and extracts from some of the productions are featured throughout these materials. What can students find out about these different productions using production images, theatre reviews, the Adopt An Actor archive, etc.? Give students time to investigate this rich archive of actor interviews from past productions. Students could be given the name and headshot of a particular actor from one of the productions; they should then research that particular production, and how the actor prepared to play the character in question. 

 

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

What was Sam Wanamaker’s vision in rebuilding the Globe?

To what extent do I think this has been achieved?

How can researching how Shakespeare was performed in the past be of use to actors today?

 

Suggested plenary activity…
Where would students prefer to see a production of Shakespeare? At the Globe or in a modern theatre? Outdoors? On screen? Why?

 

Asides: Further Resources

 

  • Ben Crystal writes in Shakespeare on Toast (pp.52-54) about the connection that can be achieved between the actors and the audience in the reconstructed Globe.

 

Epilogue: Teacher’s Note

The factsheets mentioned in this resource are available for teachers on Teaching Shakespeare (teach.shakespearesglobe.com/fact-sheet-third-globe), as well as for students to access at home on the Globe website (shakespearesglobe.com/discovery-space/fact-sheets).

Key Questions for Students:

Can I evaluate the importance of movement work and choreography in productions of Shakespeare?

Can I analyse how different actors who have played the role of Tybalt have communicated with the audience using body language, facial expression and other movements?

Can I apply these insights to my own ideas for staging a very physical scene?

Key words: body language, character, choreography, facial expression, fight scenes, movement, swordfighting

 

Prologue: Opening Discussion

Ask students to watch the first part of Act 1 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet at Globe in 2013. Students should jot down any examples of carefully choreographed moves from this clip, and share findings.

 

 

Enter the Players: Group Tasks

1) What does a choreographer do?

Ask students to think about:

  • how the shape and layout of the Globe’s stage might make particular demands of actors
  • what other parts of Romeo and Juliet might need to be choreographed, e.g. the party in Act 1, the fight in Act 3, Romeo and Juliet’s deaths in Act 5

Students will find some interview questions and answers from a Globe choreographer at 2011.playingshakespeare.org/text-performance/choreography, and from a Globe text and space coach at 2011.playingshakespeare.org/text-performance/text-work.

 

2) Playing Tybalt

Ask students to read the quotations about Tybalt:

“Tybalt is a wonderful spoiler, and he is a great energy – just as a sort of malevolevent energy.”

“Mercutio uses fencing terms and also complains that Tybalt ‘fights by the book’. The fights themselves were governed by a strict set of rules that they were honour bound to obey. Tybalt breaks these rules by thrusting under Romeo’s arm.”

“For Lady Capulet, losing Tybalt is like losing the son she never had...He is part of her household, she is looking after him, which is what they used to do with young men and young women, so she’s looking after her brother’s son, and he dies in her care.”

What different aspects of Tybalt’s character are emphasised in each quotation. Ask students to think of five adjectives to describe Tybalt and to support them with textual evidence. How would students advise the actor playing Tybalt or prepare for the part themselves? How should he stand? How should he move? Students should make notes in the Student Booklet.

 

 

3) Over to you: combat scene

Ask students to consider how they would stage the fight scene involving Tybalt, Romeo and Mercutio (Act 3 Scene 1 particularly lines 55-143). How naturalistic would the fighting be or would it be more stylised? Ask students to work in pairs, recording their ideas on a storyboard sheet. You could ask students to bring some of these images to life in their own tableaux and even take photographs to which captions/quotations could be added.

Students could then compare their vision against the staging of it in the 2013 production:

 

 

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

How important are a character’s movements in a play?

Should all movement on stage be planned and rehearsed?

How can a character’s movements affect our reactions to them?

 

Suggested plenary activity…

Ask students to pick one character and write down how they think that character should move, using a quotation from the play to support that idea. (The quotation could be said by the character in question or it could be something said by another character.)

 

Asides: Further Resources

  • Most Elizabethan gentlemen carried swords in public and many had a dagger too. These weapons were worn more as a sign of status than for defence. However, younger gentlemen (or ‘gallants’) did fight in the streets. The fact that even the servants in Romeo and Juliet carry swords and shields too (not normally carried at all) is a sign of just how extreme the old feud has become.

 

  • The open air playhouses in Shakespeare’s time did more than just show plays. They staged exhibitions of sword fighting, tournaments and prize fights between duellers. Some theatres, including the Curtain where Romeo and Juliet was probably first played, became well known for these fights.

 

  • Each of the following words is used by Shakespeare to mean a weapon or piece of armour, but the words also have other meanings with which may be more familiar. What do these words mean when Shakespeare uses them in a military context? 1) crest; 2) carriages; 3) foil; 4) hanger;  5) partisan; 6) pike; 7) target;  8) tuck

 

  • All performances of plays in Shakespeare’s time would have ended with a dance or ‘jig’ involving the whole company of actors. This is a tradition that continues to this day at Shakespeare’s Globe, as you can see in this clip from the end of a production of Macbeth:

 

Epilogue: Teacher’s Note

Further Key Stage 4 activities about Tybalt can be found under Character.

Key Questions for Students:

Can I find out about how different actors have approached the role of Romeo?

Can I understand the role played by other theatre professionals who support actors in approaching major roles or key scenes in different ways?

Key words: actor, character, costume, entrance, exit, motivation, movement, prompt book, props, stage manager, voice

 

Prologue: Opening Discussion

The Globe actress Yolanda Vasquez shares a list of questions she asks when she is rehearsing a play. Students could answer these questions about Romeo at the beginning of Act 1, and repeat this for the character at a later point in the play that they can choose. They should write in modern English in the first person.

1) Who am I? 
What kind of person is this character? What is the character’s background, influences, education, experiences, likes and dislikes, relationships? What are their inner and outer characteristics?

2) Where am I? 
What kind of place is the character in? Is it familiar or unfamiliar? What does it mean to the character, if anything? How does the character feel about their surroundings?

3) When is it? 
What is the time of year, day, or season? Why is the scene set at that moment? What’s happened before? Where is the character going to afterwards? 

4) What do I want? 
This is the character’s primary need, their desire. Actors often refer to this as a character’s ‘objective’.

5) Why do I want it?
The character must have a good reason for wanting it. It justifies their objective.

6) How will I get it?
What does the character need to do to accomplish his/her objective? (E.g. beg, plead, tease, threaten, etc.) What tactics does s/he use? These can be both verbal and physical?

7) What must I overcome?
This is the resistance. It’s what’s stopping the character from obtaining his/her objective. This might be an inner obstacle (coming from the character’s own characteristics or physical or mental state of being) or an outer obstacle (coming from the character’s situation or relationship). This might also be affected by the objectives of other characters.

 

Enter the Players: Group Tasks

1) Playing Romeo

Students read three accounts in the Student Booklet about approaching the role of Romeo. In groups of three, students take one account each and feedback to the others about how the three actors approached the role. They should focus on:

  • the creative ideas they brought to the role
  • any anxieties or misgivings about the role
  • any insights they brought to the role from background reading/research/lectures
  • how all of this translated into the performance they gave as Romeo

Students could also write a creative piece about approaching the role of Romeo using one or more of these perspectives as models for their own writing.

 

2) The role of the stage manager

What does a stage manager do? Follow this link - 2013.playingshakespeare.org/week-by-week/116 - to watch an interview with Jo Strictland, a Deputy Stage Manager at the Globe. Students could then read the questions and answers about stage management via this link: 2011.playingshakespeare.org/text-performance/stage-management. Emphasise the idea that the role of the stage manager involves a great deal of coordination of different artistic and technical inputs.

 

3) Over to you: staging Act 5 Scene 3 lines 1-120

If students have completed the previous task, they will have found out more about what a ‘prompt book’ is. For this activity, students are going to be creating a prompt book version of Act 5, Scene 3, line 1-120. They should begin with a plain text version of the extract in question with plenty of space for notes.

The prompt book should include:

  • any cuts that are being made to this scene
  • notes about entrances and exits, and about positions (blocking)
  • notes that have been agreed with the actors – particularly the actor playing Romeo – about important aspects of their performances (use of voice, body language)
  • notes about costumes and props in this scene

 

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

What different factors influence and inspire an actor’s performance in a role?

How has the role of Romeo been interpreted by actors?

How would I approach this role as an actor, a director or a stage manager?

 

Suggested plenary activity…

Create a spider diagram to show the different kinds of creative input that contribute to a performance. This could include: the actor, fellow actors, Shakespeare, audience members, musicians, costume designer, prop maker, choreographer, composer, etc.

 

Aside: Further Resource

  • The Chamberlain’s Men would not have used as many props as a modern theatre company. Many of the props which they did have are used in Romeo and Juliet: the swords (for the fight scenes), the torches (to help the audience imagine the dark) and the bed (the company’s biggest prop).

 

Epilogue: Teacher’s Note

The prompt book task could be used to assess reading, speaking and listening, particularly if students run through a rehearsal of the scene. Students could take on the following roles: the actors (Romeo, Paris, Balthasar and Page); the director; and members of the stage management team. This discussion should be as broad as possible to emphasise the cooperation and collaboration a play requires. 

Key Questions for Students:

Can I find out about how different actors have approached the role of Juliet?

Can I develop my understanding of the role of other theatre professionals, who support actors in approaching major roles or key scenes in different ways?

Key words: actor, archive, character, context, motivation, research, review

 

Prologue: Opening Discussion

The Globe actress Yolanda Vasquez shares a list of questions she asks when she is rehearsing a play. Students could answer these questions about Juliet at the beginning of Act 1, and repeat this for the character at a later point in the play that they can choose. They should write in modern English in the first person.

1) Who am I? 
What kind of person is this character? What is the character’s background, influences, education, experiences, likes and dislikes, relationships? What are their inner and outer characteristics?

2) Where am I? 
What kind of place is the character in? Is it familiar or unfamiliar? What does it mean to the character, if anything? How does the character feel about their surroundings?

3) When is it? 
What is the time of year, day, or season? Why is the scene set at that moment? What’s happened before? Where is the character going to afterwards? 

4) What do I want? 
This is the character’s primary need, their desire. Actors often refer to this as a character’s ‘objective’.

5) Why do I want it?
The character must have a good reason for wanting it. It justifies their objective.

6) How will I get it?
What does the character need to do to accomplish his/her objective? (E.g. beg, plead, tease, threaten, etc.) What tactics does s/he use? These can be both verbal and physical?

7) What must I overcome?
This is the resistance. It’s what’s stopping the character from obtaining his/her objective. This might be an inner obstacle (coming from the character’s own characteristics or physical or mental state of being) or an outer obstacle (coming from the character’s situation or relationship). This might also be affected by the objectives of other characters.

 

Enter the Players: Group Tasks

1) Playing Juliet

Students read a series of blog posts by Kananu Kirimi about approaching the role of Juliet. Students should discuss:

  • the creative ideas she brought to the role
  • any anxieties or misgivings about the role
  • any insights she brought to the role from background reading/research/lectures
  • how all of this translated into the performance she gave as Juliet

Students could also write a creative piece about approaching the role of Juliet using Kananu’s blog posts as a model for their own writing.

 

 

2) Spotlight on research

Show students this interview with Dr Derek Dunne: 2013.playingshakespeare.org/week-by-week/279. Students should make notes on what Dunne’s role is at the Globe and why this work is considered to be an essential part of staging a play there. Students could search the Adopt An Actor archive to find examples of the research team’s input into an actor’s understanding of a character they are playing. How did the research support the actor’s performance in general and/or in particular scenes or speeches?

 

3) Over to you: staging Act 5, Scene 3, lines 121-167

For this activity, students are going to be creating a prompt book version of Act 5, Scene 3, lines 121-167. They should begin with a plain text version of the extract in question with plenty of space for notes. This activity continues the analysis of Act 5 Scene 3 from the activity in the previous learning sequence.

The prompt book should include:

  • any cuts that are being made to this scene
  • notes about entrances and exits, and about positions (blocking)
  • notes that have been agreed with the actors - particularly the actor playing Juliet - about important aspects of their performances (use of voice, body language)
  • notes about costumes and props in this scene

 

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

What different factors influence and inspire an actor’s performance in a role?

How has the role of Juliet been interpreted by actors?

How can the work of researchers at the Globe support an actor’s interpretation and performance?

 

Suggested plenary task…

Ask students to imagine that they are about to play Romeo or Juliet at the Globe. What kinds of questions would they have about playing the character? How would they go about answering those questions? Share ideas.

 

Asides: Further Resources

  • It’s useful to reflect on what we are told and not told about Juliet. In the introduction to the Arden edition of the play, Rene Weis says ‘We learn more biographical details about Juliet’s history than we do with any other character in Shakespeare, mostly through Nurse’s affectionate, if embarrassing, banter.’ He also says that ‘While the play gives Juliet’s age and birthday…it says nothing about her appearance.’

 

  • Rene Weis argues that ‘the play’s double focus notwithstanding, its focus rests squarely on Juliet’. Discuss - and perhaps debate - this statement in class.

Epilogue: Teacher’s Note

Students could find out more about how Shakespeare’s life and times or theatre practices have inspired directors and actors via the Adopt An Actor archive.

Key Questions for Students:

Can I demonstrate awareness and understanding of Romeo and Juliet as a text written for the theatre in my essays?

Can I write about the dramatic effects of Shakespeare’s text on stage in an insightful way?

Key words: actor, director, drama, glossary, jargon, performance, script, stage directions, text, theatre, vocabulary

 
Prologue: Opening Discussion

Show students this quotation by the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (from a letter to his brother Edward in 1885):

'Shakespeare and all great dramatists have their maximum effect on stage but bear to be or must be studied at home before or after or both.'

Ask students to work out what they think Hopkins is saying here and to sum it up in their own words. How far do they agree with this statement?

 

 
Enter the Players: Group Tasks

1) Glossary

As a class, students compile their own detailed glossary of drama and theatre terms, and include it in their Student Booklet as a loose-leaf page.

 

 

2) Question bank: text in performance

The following tasks can be used in the modelling of planning and drafting written tasks, as well as for students’ more independently produced work for assessment:

  • Write a review of a production of Romeo and Juliet you have seen.
  • Explain to a group of actors, designers, etc. your vision as director for a new production of Romeo and Juliet, aimed at attracting more teenagers to watch Shakespeare plays.
  • What advice would you give to the actors playing Romeo and Juliet in Act 2 Scene 6? Make reference to at least two other parts of the play within your answer.
  • Re-read Act 3 Scene 1 lines 1-138. Describe in detail how you would stage this part of the scene and explain the reasons behind your decisions. 
  • Compare how the character of either Tybalt or Mercutio is portrayed in three different stage or screen versions of the play. Ensure you refer extensively to the text in your answer.
  • The critic William Hazlitt describes how the play takes Romeo and Juliet “from the highest bliss to the lowest despair”. Write about three scenes that show how this happens and about how you would stage these scenes. (William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, 1845, p. 93)

 

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

How can I demonstrate my understanding of Romeo and Juliet as a work of drama to be performed?

To what extent should I write about performing the text when I’m writing about characters, language or themes for an essay?

 

Suggested plenary task…

Focus marking of work in progress against individual curricular targets.

 

Aside: Further Resource

  • The tasks in the question banks can be used as the basis for devising further tasks to suit the needs of your own class, curriculum and syllabus.

 

Epilogue: Teacher’s Note

For more detailed guidance for students on revising and writing about Romeo and Juliet in exam conditions, see the materials in the Student Booklet.

Key Questions for Students:

Can I investigate some of the similarities and differences between different versions of Romeo and Juliet on stage and on screen?

Can I explain my personal view of some of the different portrayals and interpretations?

Key words: adaptation, close up, colour, connotation, director, mise en scene, lighting, long shot, shot, still

 

Prologue: Opening Discussion

Find stills from productions of Romeo and Juliet, featuring the actors playing the eponymous characters. Here are some examples:

  •  Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet starring Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio (1996)
  •  Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey (1968)
  •  Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard in Romeo and Juliet, directed by George Cukor (1936)
  •  Laurence Harvey and Susan Shentall (1954)
  •  Hailee Steinfield and Douglas Booth (2013)

Distribute sets of cards, some with captions naming famous screen versions of Romeo and Juliet and some with stills from those productions. Students should match the still to the film it is taken from. Take feedback, ensuring students explain the process by which they matched film still to its caption. For homework, students could find out more about one of these versions, e.g. Where was it filmed? Did it win any awards? How faithful to the original play is it?

 

Enter the Players: Group Tasks

1) Romeo and Juliet on screen

Distribute larger versions of the images used in the starter activity, one per group of three or four. Students should analyse the still in detail, looking at:

  • what kind of shot it is (e.g, long shot, close up)
  • lighting (e.g. light source, what’s in shadow)
  • use of colour (colour palette, contrasts, connotations and symbolism of colours)
  • mise en scene (what’s in the frame, how the frame is composed)

Through class discussion, build two brainstorms showing some of the different possibilities of stage and of screen when performing a Shakespeare play.

 

2) Research

Together students build up a gallery of images and an archive of research about different productions of Romeo and Juliet on stage and screen, including reviews of those different productions. Different pairs or small groups could research particular productions and become ‘experts’ on that particular production. Allocate productions to ensure that across the class, a mixture of stage and screen versions are researched. Students could collaborate to produce a timeline of productions as a class display.

 

 

3) Assessment task

As individuals, students choose one element of the play, either a character or a particular scene. They should prepare a slideshow presentation, comparing and evaluating different interpretations, and drawing some personal conclusions. In order to acquire their evidence, they should consult their classmates who are by now experts on various productions. Students should make as many connections as they can to the text itself and to how Shakespeare’s language has been interpreted in the various versions of the play they are examining. As listeners, students could make notes about words and phrases that their fellow students have used to compare and contrast different versions; these words and phrases could be collated in a word and phrase bank.

 

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

How has Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet been interpreted in different ways on stage and on screen?

What is my personal response to some of these different portrayals and interpretations?

Can there be such a thing as a definitive version?

 

Suggested plenary activity…

Students construct a sentence comparing one particular aspect of two different productions using some of the language from the word and phrase bank.

 

Aside: Further Resource

  • The BFI has produced materials about Film Language in general and about a number of examples of Shakespeare on film, including Olivier’s 1944 Henry V and the 2010 version of Othello starring Christopher Eccleston as Iago.

 

Epilogue: Teacher’s Note

As extension work, students could bring in research about other productions they have studied independently. The individual presentations can be assessed for speaking, listening and reading.

Key Questions for Students:

Can I comment on the significance of the party scene in the play as a whole?

Can I analyse in detail the language of this scene and make thoughtful links to the rest of the play?

Key words: anticipation, audience, characters, concealment, foreshadowing, imagery, masque, romantic love, sonnet

 

Prologue: Opening Discussion

Ask students to make notes on any references from Act 1 Scenes 1 - 4, in which the party of Act 1 Scene 5 is mentioned. Ask students to write a brief answer in their Student Booklet to the question about the audience’s anticipation of this scene.

 

Prologue: Opening Discussion

1) Getting to grips with the scene

Students should use the relevant pages in the Student Booklet to write brief summaries of the different sections or ‘chunks’ of this long scene (Act 1 Scene 5). Students can then be assigned a particular section to read and should prepare a performance of their section for the class. They should make spoken ‘annotations’, highlighting key points about plot, character, themes, language and context.

 

 

2) Group presentations

All students should now go to where the scene is written in full in the Student Booklet. As they listen to their classmates’ feedback, they should begin to write annotations about this scene, again ensuring they have considered plot, characters, themes, language and context as they do so. Students should continue with this detailed study of the scene, perhaps as a revision homework.

 

3) Over to you: essay

Finally, in this particular section of the Student Booklet, students can plan and draft the following essay: 

Write a detailed commentary about Act 1 Scene 5 that also assesses the scene’s significance in the play as a whole.

Using the guidance in the Student Booklet to help them, students should ensure:

  • that they write about each ‘chunk’ of the scene
  • that they make points about characters, themes, language and context
  • that they support points with textual evidence
  • that they make links between this scene and other parts of the play

 

Exeunt: Closing Questions for Students

In what ways is the party scene significant in the play as a whole? 

Can I pick out a particular line that I think is very significant and explain why?

 

Suggested plenary activity…

Using the success criteria, students could self- or peer- assess their essays and make notes on strengths and target areas in the Revision section of the Student Booklet.

 

Asides: Further Resources

  • In the Tudor and Stuart periods, the upper classes hired musicians and actors and held grand celebrations in their own houses. Masques could be anything from a simple fancy-dress party (where everyone wore a mask) to a full-scale theatrical show. The simple masque in Romeo and Juliet is a chance for the youth of Verona to flirt with each other, whilst under the cover of disguise. Crucially it gives Romeo and his friends the chance to enter the Capulet household without being detected.

 

  • Students could also look at the second Chorus, another sonnet which comes directly after Act 1 Scene 5. How effectively does it summarise the key events of the play so far and anticipate what will happen next?

 

Epilogue: Teacher’s Note

Other materials that relate to this scene can be found within both the Key Stage 3 Language and Key Stage 4 Language materials.

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