Romeo and Juliet was Shakespeare’s most famous play which is about love of two teenagers of two rival families. Since Romeo’s family and Juliet’s family are rivals, their families don’t agree with the marriage of their children to each other. However, Romeo and Juliet despite the opposition of their families secretly get married at church and insist on reaching their goal of being together. The whole story is played in the theatre style of the Renaissance; audiences could see violence, young boys are playing female rolls without wearing masks, many scenes and time change. However, if it was played in Greek theatre style, the audience could see a different style of performance and there would be a different effect. In Greek Theatre we would see no violence; males would play female parts by wearing masks, there would be one setting and day light only.
In the Renaissance theatre violence was shown frequently at their performances. In the story of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is involved in a street fight and he kills Tybalt, who was Juliet’s cousin. In the Greek theatre no violence was shown. If it was played in Greek theatre style, the audience wouldn’t see violence in the theatre. In my opinion, if we want to play Romeo and Juliet in Greek Theatre style, the option would be a narrator to tell the story of the street fight which ends up with the death of Juliet’s cousin which eventually raises the tension between two families and the opposition of Juliet’s family with marriage to Romeo.
In Romeo and Juliet, we can see young boys playing women’s roles in Renaissance style. They create typical images of female characteristics. In a Renaissance theatre young boys were the performers of female roles and they wore no masks if required. Teenage boys were used to play female roles because of their high pitched voices, sounding more like women; they look more natural