The two lovers are dead and the Prince has forced peace upon the two households, the Capulets and the Montagues, but as everyone knows too well an enforced truce is barely a truce at all. After Juliet (1999) is MacDonald's own sequel to Romeo and Juliet, following the story of Juliet's cousin Rosaline after the death of the two famous lovers. It was commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for the BT National Connections Scheme for Young People, and has proved particularly popular in school drama departments. MacDonald's approach, with its accessible dialogue, believable teenage characters and moments of comedy, gives the story a fresh appeal for a young, modern-day audience, as After Juliet reveals the fragility of the truce between the two families: As it turns out, Rosaline and Benvolio’s relationship (which is mostly one-sided) is such a small part of this short but fascinating work. This is more of an exploration of Rosaline’s thoughts following the tragedy and, even more broadly, the thoughts of Verona as a whole. Most of the scenes consist of the characters discussing the events of Shakespeare’s play and trying to make sense of them—who should be blamed for all of the recent deaths? Should the two families remain at peace, or is that a fruitless endeavor? Did Romeo and Juliet even really love each other? Nevertheless, May (Justin David Sullivan) is a typically clever modern gloss on Shakespeare — a playwright, as Anne points out, who is “basically synonymous with gender-bending.” And if three of the couples, liberated by Juliet’s liberation, achieve surprisingly normative happy endings, the girl herself ends the show uncommitted, still trying to “own her choices,” apparently by not making any.

The strength of the above performances highlighted the weakness in others, for which I have to cast another stone at the Directors, by not paying attention to characterisation and to the drama itself. Tara Quinn had the lion's share of dialogue, but failed to live up to it. Her long speeches were monotonous and needed much more variation and impetus; she has presence in abundance, and the fight scene was a real bonus, but she must pay more attention to what she is saying, and also to watch her diction. Miriam Early as Bianca was inaudible for most of the evening, and surely the Directors must bear some portion of the blame for this, because although the feeling was there, we just couldn't hear it! Comic relief is provided by two Capulet boys with boastful, braggardly conversations, written with an ear for the bard and filled with wonderful non-sequiturs and played with a laddish teenage joie de vivre by Louis Wellings and Declan McElroy.Remember, the audience has been building up to this moment for the past few hours so it’s got to be dramatically satisfying. Otherwise, you could have a riot on your hands. Baz Luhrman’s film of Romeo and Juliet with Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio prompted Sharman Macdonald’s 13-year-old daughter Keira Knightley to tell her to write play about Rosaline. Undoubtedly Rosaline appears on stage in Romeo and Juliet and at the Capulet’s party but she is not in the cast list and, although Romeo is besotted with her in Act I Scene 1, she is only mentioned twice. The daughter's demand together with the film's electrifying music and the tough sinewy style that made the Shakespearean language a dialect that young people could use, led Sharman Macdonald to speculate on how she could explore what happened in the days immediately after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare situates this maturation directly after Juliet’s wedding night, linking the idea of development from childhood to adulthood with sexual experience. Indeed, Juliet feels so strong that she defies her father, but in that action she learns the limit of her power. Strong as she might be, Juliet is still a woman in a male-dominated world. One might think that Juliet should just take her father up on his offer to disown her and go to live with Romeo in Mantua. That is not an option. Juliet, as a woman, cannot leave society; and her father has the right to make her do as he wishes. Though defeated by her father, Juliet does not revert to being a little girl. She recognizes the limits of her power and, if another way cannot be found, determines to use it: for a woman in Verona who cannot control the direction of her life, suicide, the brute ability to live or not live that life, can represent the only means of asserting authority over the self. Juliet is decisive when she fakes her own death so she can be with Romeo. She listens to Friar Laurence's plan and decides to fulfil it. They don’t even bother to hide the jukebox. It’s right there, out in the open, before the show starts: a chrome Cyclops glowering at you from the stage of the Stephen Sondheim Theater, of all places. Hannah McIntosh as Alice was too fidgety, especially with her hair, which started to irritate after a while, and she did not completely suggest the brainless vamp. Again, I sensed she could do so, and needed a stronger guiding hand.Alright, alright it’s clearly a prop but come on guys, it’s a play, she’s not actually gonna die. Suspend your flipping disbelieve will you? It’s certainly respectable enough—taking on Shakespeare is no easy task, but Macdonald appropriately channels the wild (oftentimes conflicting) emotions of the teenage characters and the entire text simmers with the restlessness and resentment that is baked into Verona’s very foundation. Though this play wisely does not attempt to mimic Shakespearean language or meter, it’s written in a format that walks the line between the poetry of Romeo and Juliet and the contemporary language of today. I am well aware from some of my other Shakespeare retellings that this is quite difficult to accomplish; After Juliet neither feels wildly anachronistic nor like a lofty attempt to mimic Victorian English. Despite convincing characterisations and some excellent exchanges between Benvolio and Valentine, the women dominate the play. Rosaline is scorned, vindictive, assertive and single-minded but she is also a fighter with a lightness and a sense of humour. Bianca, on the other hand, is a visionary, otherworldly, magical, holding the balance of the peace in her hands. Helena is the carer, the surrogate mother who expresses some of the frustrations that a carer feels while Rhona, the outsider from Glasgow, is seen as a threat. With Shakespeare’s two most famous protagonists dead, playwright Sharman Macdonald shifts the spotlight onto Juliet’s cousin Rosaline, played by a fittingly sardonic Mary Butler. Rosaline, devastated by Romeo’s death (she was his first crush before Juliet entered the picture), seethes with bitter resentment – director Maddy Trépanier highlights the possible feminist readings of her character: Rosaline seems to be saying, “I’m just as crazy, disruptive, neurotic, obsessive, as any man – watch what I can do.”

Presenter: Hello and welcome to The Big Scene. We’re in the tomb at the end of Romeo and Juliet and it’s about as cheerful as the last time I saw my in-laws, Christmas ’96. Thanks for asking.Romeo requests that Juliet declares her love for him and Juliet simply replies that she has already done so. This shows how loving and passionate she is, as she has given her love and heart to Romeo.