It was produced as a response to the “ban on same-sex marriages” going on at that time in America. In 2008, Guerilla Theatre, a theater group based in Downtown, Wilmington, North Carolina, produced a modern spin of Romeo and Juliet portrayed by female leads. Other than Youtube stashes of lesbian Shakespeare plays acted out by actresses, there are also live stagings of lesbian Shakespeare.
Rome and Juliet, compared to other adaptations, is more dramatic and less invested in the details of Romeo and Juliet because in this film adaptation, it is only established that they were having a forbidden love there was no mention of families in conflict or a mutual suicide. One thing leads to another, and after a few encounters, they wind up having a forbidden affair. Juliet, a pre-school teacher, hires Romeo, a businesswoman to plan her wedding to Marc, a politician. Unlike other spin offs of Romeo and Juliet’s romance, Rome and Juliet are women of different fields. Rome and Juliet – Rome and Juliet is a local film adaptation starring locally well-known actresses. In this adaptation, they do not follow the lines from the play but rather, their own lines of a new-age Rosaline and Juliet questioning the conventions of loving a person of the same gender. However, in Rosaline and Juliet, it shows Rosaline, who in the classic play, did not get a line at all. Other lesbian takes on this piece involve Romeo taking a woman’s name, or Romeo being portrayed by a woman. Rosaline and Juliet – Rosaline and Juliet is a more diverse adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Like Juliet and Romeo, this take also explicitly changed its name to a more feminine version, Romina. Romina and Juliet – Romina and Juliet is a new-age lesbian adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. The rest of the video adaptations which will be shown here are student projects from other countries, acting out scenes from Romeo and Juliet, and Othello. Two of these teenagers are in a quest for love, and in one of the scenes, one of them comes in wearing a fencing outfit with a sword on one hand, then recites lines from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.ĭesdemona’s Death – Desdemona’s Death, like Juliet and Romeo, is an explicit adaptation of a scene from Shakespeare’s Othello, with characters played by women.
Lost and Delirious (cut scene) – Lost and Delirious is a movie about three teenagers set in a private school.
It is as if the lines were her own, full of trust and young love. If I were to say, I think from all the non-Hollywood, non-cinema premiered adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, the Juliet here seems to be the most passionate to pronounce her lines. From the title itself, the interchanging of the names Juliet and Romeo show that there is a twist to this adaptation. It features young Juliet and Romeo, just like how they were in Act 2, Scene 2 of the play, both played by women. Juliet and Romeo – Juliet and Romeo is a short film explicitly based on the classic Romeo and Juliet. While Shakespeare classics still remain to be one of the most adapted plays in school and professionally, this essay will show outputs from students around the world and professionally made films/plays. Nevertheless, lesbian Shakespeare adaptation still sell to a number of audiences and a few play adaptations are still premiered online and on stage. However, it does not go the same with drag kings, which shows how much people find the queens more interesting than the kings. If we Google Drag Shakespeare, a number of colorful results showing drag queens appear.
However, lesbian Shakespeare adaptations are a bit of a novelty to many. In Shakespeare, there have been a number of spin-offs that show gay people acting as characters from a Shakespeare play, adding their own twist to it. Some are not too aware of the existence of drag kings and soft lesbian friends. Sometimes, we do, we come across media that display lesbians in a context but there is not much depth given to them as the gays.
We see famously entertaining drag queens sassy gay friends but we do not really see the lesbian counterparts of it. With all the gender-bended things we see on the internet and television these days, it seems as if there is more focus on the gay side of homosexual media. Escorpizo, BA English Studies: Languageĭisclaimer: All videos/pictures used in this essay are not mine unless otherwise stated.