Let's Bust a Recap : Romeo and Juliet

"For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

Shakespeare two weeks in a row?! Yes indeedy, we are getting caught up around here. As I mentioned back in February when I finally recapped The Tempest, I totally skipped blogging the Bard last year and do I really even need to recap Romeo and Juliet anyway? 

This won't be a full-on recap like most of my Shakespeare posts. Romeo and Juliet is undoubtedly old Shakie's most famous play of all time and if you don't know the most basic plot, then I cry for the education system. 

Montagues and Capulets, feuding families, star-cross'd lovers, suicide, reconciliation. 

I first read this play in Ms. Sterling's freshman English honors course in high school which means I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed fourteen year old. Older than Juliet, I might point out. 

She assigned parts and as a class we read the entire play out loud and discussed it ad nauseam. I loved that class. I think every high schooler should read Romeo and Juliet. 

When I set out to read everything Shakespeare ever wrote, I decided I would definitely re-read Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar in the course of my endeavor and 2023 ended up being the year I revisited R&J. 

Like I said, I won't rewrite the entire play, but if you're one of the ones I'm crying for: Romeo Montague falls in love Juliet Capulet...but their families hate each other. They secretly get married, but through a series of unfortunate events, end up killing themselves, at which point their families realize the devastation of their petty feud and reconcile. 

A few things I want to harp on after re-reading the play last year: Romeo is hardcore in l-o-v-e with fair Rosaline and is bemoaning his unrequited condition literally two seconds before he sees Juliet and falls head over heels for her instead.

What a catch.

Juliet, as previously mentioned, is THIRTEEN. Like, I get that this is some 16th century nonsense, but bruh. Sis has barely hit puberty. I can't with this. Like, is this even a tragic "love story" or is this just a tragic case of total parental neglect?? I'm just saying is all.

What I really want to talk about is the fever dream of a film adaptation I watched a few weeks ago starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes that hit our theaters hot back in 1996. I thought for sure I had seen this movie in high school shortly after reading the play, but upon revisiting it I'm not so sure. I think I would have remembered it, but maybe I completely blocked it because wow. 

Wow, wow, wow.

It seems to me that this is the definitive film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, at least of my generation, and I kid you not that the vibe was exactly the stuff of my real-life nightmares. This is an award-winning film, y'all. It's like some 90s, south Miami, gang crap—but all in the original Shakespearean English—and the only thing going for it was the incredibly believable chemistry between the absolutely adorable Claire and Leo. I guess I should have expected nothing less from something that was directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann but it's going to take me a while to get over it. 

This is really all I have to say about Romeo and Juliet. In point of fact, you need to read it for yourself, or better yet, see it on stage. Despite my poking fun at it, it's a true masterpiece. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Timon of Athens

After pretty much skipping July and August here on ye olde blog, am I jumping back into it with a Shakespearean recap?! You bet your sweet petunias I am, and this will be an easy one because Timon of Athens was a short, straightforward play so let's just knock this one out and hopefully get back in a rhythm around here. 

We open on a lavish banquet and some artists talking about gifts they will be giving to our titular Timon. Timon is like, the most generous guy in all of Athens and we quickly learn that he will spare no expense to show all his friends how much they mean to him. He's doling out jewelry and horses and gold left and right and everyone is singing his praises. 

Except for his steward, Flavius, who is stressing out major, and a cynical philosopher named Apemantus who acts like it is his full time job to be a professional party pooper. 

Well, naturally, all Timon's creditors decide it's time to collect and his bills all come due at once. Which is bad news because he is beyond broke and there is no way out of the hole he has dug himself. He quickly turns on Flavius, berating him for not handling things better and letting him know what a mess he was in.

To which Flavius is all, "My guy, you have got to be kidding me, there is no talking to you."

And then Timon is like, "Okay, no worries, I'll just ask my dear friends to help me out, they'll do anything for me."

(We can all see right where this is going, right?)

Timon's servants approach his friends, asking them to loan Timon some money. First up: Lucullus.

Lucullus is all excited to see one of Timon's servants rolling up because he's expecting a gift which would typically be par for the course. But when he realizes Timon is hitting him up for something, he tries to bribe the servant to say he never actually talked to Lucullus. The servant, who actually loves Timon, tells Lucullus what he can do with his money and leaves. 

Next up: Lucius (which, yes, is a very similar name to Lucullus, whyyyy?)

Lucius is talking to some random guys about how great Timon is and they're all, "Oh yeah, I heard he's pretty hard up for money right now." Lucius: "Surely not Timon." Random guys: "Oh for sure, and his other friends have straight up refused to help him out." Lucius: "They are wrong for that, I would never turn my back on Timon." At which exact moment, one of Timon's servants ask Lucius for help and Lucius—in front of the guys he was just telling he would lend Timon money in a heartbeat—looks straight in the servant's face and says, "Oh I wish I could but I was actually just about to ask Timon for a loan myself and please tell him I would if I could but I can't so I won't." 

The nerve.

Now we're gonna go try Sempronius. This one's my favorite. 

When Timon's servant approaches Sempronius, Sempronius is all, "Why's he asking me? He should have tried his other friends who are richer than me. They definitely owe him big time and they've got the means to help him out." To which the servant is like, "We asked and they all rejected us." To which Sempronius looks right back at them and says, "What? Timon came to me last? If he had come to me first I definitely would have helped him but since he doesn't think better of me than to come to me first, I won't be bothered with him at all." 

Are you kidding me?

So the servants come back to Timon and inform him that his so-called "friends" are all low-down, good-for-nothings. Timon rages at this and then tells Flavius to go invite all these guys back to his house for another banquet. To which Flavius is like, "Uhhh, do you not understand what's going on? You're B-R-O-K-E." But Timon's like, "Don't worry about the expense, just get those losers over here."

And these guys, after all flippantly dismissing Timon's pleas for help, have the audacity to roll back up to his crib for another party thinking everything's all fine and probably they're going to come in to some more gifts because what? This was all a joke? 

In the meantime, one of Timon's friends, a general named Alcibiades, is meeting with the Senate who is banishing him from Athens. He's obviously a bit upset about this and after some back and forth, vows to take his revenge on Athens.

But back to Timon's party.

His "friends" all show up, ready for a good time. Timon brings out covered dishes for everyone and when they are all ready to dig in, has them uncovered to show bowls of lukewarm water and nothing else. To which his "friends" are all, "What the heck, man?" And Timon is like, "I hope you all rot in hell!" throws the water in their faces, and storms out.

Flavius and the other servants, who are the only level-headed, decent people in this entire play, then have a meeting and agree to split everything they have between them equally and go in peace while Flavius vows to find Timon whatever it takes and loyally care for him no matter what.

Timon, meanwhile, has set up camp in a cave outside Athens and is living on roots which, in digging up, he has discovered a literal gold mine. 

Like, he's sitting on a pile of actual gold.

But he hates all of humanity now and he's just out here, digging in the dirt, railing against the world. 

Alcibiades shows up with a couple of loose women and we get a colorful exchange wherein Timon tells Alcibiades to drop dead and tells the whores they're full of STDs. 

I kid you not.

When Alcibiades tells Timon of his plan to get revenge on all of Athens, Timon gives him a bunch of gold and tells him to level the city, and tells the women to go infect everyone with their venereal diseases. 

Good stuff.

So Alcibiades and his ladies leave with their gold and then Apemantus shows up and wants to know why Timon is trying to copy him and be the world's worst party pooper. So they just go back and forth for a while about how much they hate everything. 

Okay...?

Then a bunch of other randos come out looking for Timon and all this gold he's rumored to have and we get some more scathing commentary from Timon each time someone shows up.

But then Flavius finally finds him, and even though Timon at first continues his whole mad-at-the-world routine, he realizes Flavius is an honest-to-goodness good guy and gives him a bunch of the gold. 

Then the Senators who banished Alcibiades show up asking Timon to pretty please go talk Alcibiades out of wrecking Athens. To which Timon is like, "Go hang yourselves."

And then Timon just....dies in the wilderness. 

Alcibiades shows up ready to burn down Athens and the Senators literally beg him to only kill the people who deserve it. Then a soldier shows up saying he found Timon's grave and they read Timon's pathetic epitaph and Alcibiades agrees to only dole out justice to the people who deserve it: the end. 

So...there's that. Once you get into it, Timon of Athens is an easy play to read, but the ending is pretty lackluster. There's a lot of debate surrounding the authorship of this one. Some think Timon was Shakespeare's last play and that he never completed it. A lot of people think the Bard coauthored the play with Thomas Middleton. We'll probably never know for sure, but overall, Timon of Athens, despite the dull ending, ranks higher for me than some of Shakespeare's other work. It was a fun one, and I'd recommend it. 

I think we're down to just four comedies and four tragedies left! On deck for 2025: Two Gentlemen of Verona and Coriolanus.