this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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Well of course. It's a tragedy. Not a romance. That's stated upfront even.
It's a tragicomedy. The joke is that love is stupid.
I don't think that's the joke, beyond a bit of "kids are fucking stupid." There's a lot of commentary out there about it possibly being a satire but it's definitely more tragedy than comedy. Midsummer Night's Dream is the comedy about whirlwind romance.
with the right soundtrack it’s a comedy
There's a lot of comedy in R&J. It's not specified explicitly in the text, but there's a lot of subtext to work with, and a ton of room for interpretation.
Nowhere in the play does it state that the friar uses a Bible to block the kids from kissing, but in the version I was in, that was a directorial decision, and it always got a laugh. And it was apropos to the scene.