MARIAH:'Romeo.' Doff thy name. And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
MARIAH:take all myself.
SAM:I take thee at thy word! Call me but love and I'll be new baptised. Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
SAM:The kind of key to the whole thing for Romeo is that, "She loves me back!" And that, that's the revelation. That final one, "Take all myself."
SAM:He can't bear it any longer and he has to go, "Oh my god. I'll get rid of my name. I don't care." Then he suddenly realises well, of course then he's given away as–
That he was there and therefore had heard everything she'd said before and, well that's in the next section. That's what they've got to get through after that.
MICHAEL:That he's been hiding in the bushes.
SAM:Yeah, I've been hiding in the bushes.
MARIAH:What man art thou that, thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?
MARIAH:She's got so much at stake here - she's put her heart on a plate and she's embarrassed.
MARIAH:She's really embarrassed. It's like, you know saying out loud in the middle of the night that you fancy someone and them popping up from the bushes and going, "I heard that." It's awful you know? It's a teenage girl's worst nightmare. It's anyone's worst nightmare.
MARIAH:How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art, if any of my kinsmen find thee here.
SAM:With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls For stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.
MARIAH:If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
MICHAEL:Who, in this moment, is dealing with the problem?
MICHAEL:And what is that problem?
MARIAH:The risk of being–
SAM:Discovered.
MARIAH:Them discovering him and killing him.
MICHAEL:Simple.
MARIAH:Yeah.
MICHAEL:You're somewhere where you shouldn't be and you could get killed. But let's use the idea of running away or running towards. So Minnie, for you the problem represents danger.
MARIAH:Yeah.
MICHAEL:And danger in this moment makes you feel an impulse to get away and get out. And Sam, you've got to negotiate getting her back.
SAM:Just sort of, "A-a–"
MICHAEL:…Yeah.
MARIAH:My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of thy tongue's utterance yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?
SAM:Neither fair maid, if either thee dislike.
MARIAH:How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb and the place - death considering who thou art if any of my kinsman find thee.
SAM:With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.
MARIAH:If they see thee, they will murder thee.
SAM:Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords.
MICHAEL:Romeo chooses to brush the problem aside, move the problem out of the way, clear the problem from Juliet's focus
MICHAEL:in order to spend more time with her–
SAM:To do that.
MICHAEL:What's this?
SAM:That doesn't matter…
SAM:…this matters, and don't worry because, you make me invincible.
MICHAEL:Absolutely.
SAM:It is dangerous.
SAM:But I think as well, I think with Juliet, she's much more, "Get out of the orchard. What are you doing?"
SAM:Whereas Romeo has a kind of space cadet streak to him. He's maybe It is dangerous but… he probably doesn't really think how dangerous it actually is. You know what I mean? The recklessness takes over.
MICHAEL:Another problem in this scene is that Romeo has been listening to something he shouldn't.
MICHAEL:That he has been spying in a place where he shouldn't and that, that isn't on. That isn't gentlemanly.
MICHAEL:So Sam, now you try and avoid. Try and squirm out of that, try and get out of that, trying to get her to forget.
MICHAEL:And Minnie, don't let him off the hook. So let's completely reverse it.
MARIAH:Romeo, doff thy name, and for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.
SAM:I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized henceforth I never will be Romeo.
MARIAH:What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?
SAM:By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am - my name dear saint, is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee had I it written, I would tear the word.
MARIAH:My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of thy tongue's utterance yet I know the sound - art thou not Romeo and a Montague.
SAM:Neither–
SAM:I think Romeo all the time is going, "I-- that was really bad, I know, but I'm only here because of love and you were talking about love so technically…
SAM:I wasn't spying on you, even though I was, I'm sorry about that." He's got that sort of-- so he's sort of charming her and…
SAM:daring her as well, kind of. They're both It's a tug of war.
MARIAH:It kind of felt quite… playful at the same time as being…
MARIAH:you know, what I'm-- I am warning him but at the same time it kind of felt that that was part of…
MARIAH:her pull towards him. Sometimes when you read it you think Romeo's refusing to leave the orchard and Juliet's saying, "Oh they might hear you."
MARIAH:So it was really nice to turn it round the other way and even though my lines were
MARIAH:warning him away I was actually advancing and it's really interesting to play with opposites like that and I suddenly felt like I was being really flirtatious.
MARIAH:And all of that can be in the lines, you know? There's so–
MARIAH:You can put so many different spins on it, and it's really nice to do something that you wouldn't necessarily have thought of yourself.
Romeo has put his life in danger by entering the Capulet orchard.
Mariah Gale and Sam Troughton discuss their characters’ response to this danger and explore differing ways of playing the scene.
This short film is from the BBC series, Shakespeare Unlocked.
Teacher Notes
The actors demonstrate how physicalising the dialogue through different approaches changes the dynamic of the scene.
Before watching the workshop, ask your students to work in pairs to come up with different ways to play the scene.
They can then can compare their ideas to those shown here.
After watching the workshop, ask students in small groups to discuss what worked, or didn't, about each version.
Were they surprised by any of the strategies that the actors tried out?
This short film is suitable for teaching GCSE English literature and drama in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and National 4/ 5 in Scotland.
More from Shakespeare Unlocked - Romeo and Juliet
Act 2, Scene 2 - Juliet's soliloquy (workshop) video
Mariah Gale and Sam Troughton explore the problem of Romeo’s name and Juliet’s solution.
Act 2, Scene 2 - Romeo's soliloquy (workshop) video
Sam Troughton discusses how Romeo has no plan once he is discovered in the Capulet garden.
Act 2, Scene 2 - The Balcony. video
Romeo steals into the Capulet garden to find Juliet on her balcony, talking to herself.
Act 3, Scene 1 - Death of Mercutio (workshop) video
Michael Fentiman discusses ambiguity in Shakespeare’s text. Does Tybalt intend to kill Mercutio?
Act 3, Scene 1 - Spoiling for a fight (workshop) video
The company discuss Shakespeare’s language and the reason for the fight.
Act 3, Scene 1 - The Fight. video
Young men from the Montague and Capulet families fight with tragic consequences.
Act 3, Scene 5 - Juliet is abandoned (workshop) video
The actors look at how Juliet becomes isolated from her mother, her father and her nurse.
About the 2011 RSC production. video
The cast discuss acting, directing and prop choices for this production.
