The Play on the Stage

Abstract

It is thought that Romeo and Juliet has been produced more often than any other of Shakespeare’s plays except Hamlet. The title pages of the first three printed versions, in 1597, 1599 and 1609, speak of many performances. There are several contemporary mentions of its popularity. John Marston in 1598 asked a stage-struck gallant ‘What’s played today?’

I set thy lips abroach, from whence did flow

Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo.

‘Sweet Mr Shakespeare’ was mentioned in an undergraduate play at Cambridge, in which one character wooed his lady with ‘monstrous theft’ from Romeo and Juliet. ‘Romea’ was spoken of in 1599 as a splendid creation of ‘honey-tongued Shakespeare’. In 1623, in the First Folio Leonard Digges wrote that it was impossible

with some new strains t’out-do

Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo.

And sure enough, constant productions have proved him right.