Getting started

The story of Romeo and Juliet transcends time and place. A novel like Joan Lingard's Across the Barricades, set in modern Belfast and telling of the love of a Catholic boy for a Protestant girl, clearly echoes Shakespeare's play, and the Laurents, Bernstein and Sondheim musical, West Side Story, is directly based on Romeo and Juliet. The rivalry between two teenage gangs in New York — the Jets, who are American teenagers, and the Sharks, who are Puerto Rican teenagers — parallels the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. In West Side Story Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love Maria, a Puerto Rican girl, with tragic results. The book and film, Endless Love is modelled on the story of Romeo and Juliet. In this story, two teenagers from different social classes fall passionately in love. The girl's parents try to keep them apart.

1. Think about:

•	What is it like to fall in love for the first time? Create a scene in which you tell your closest friend what it is like.
•	Is it possible for teenagers to fall in love passionately?
•	Do you think hate is a stronger emotion than love? Explain.
•	Is it possible for teenagers who are in love to go against their parents' objections to the relationship and continue to see each other?
•	If you knew, without any doubt, that your parents would be against your relationship with someone whom you love deeply, would you continue to see him/her?
	• If yes, what risks would you be taking? And, what precautions would you need to take? Who would you confide in? Why choose this person(s) to confide in?
	• How might you try to 'win' your parents' approval?

2. Consider the following scenario:

Two teenagers, from very two very different and strict religious and cultural backgrounds fall in love. Their parents and relatives would never accept their relationship.

What must it be like to be in that situation? Would you come home and say, "Mum (or Dad), I've met this wonderful girl. I really love her. I don't think it matters she's a . . .

Now that you thought about and answered this question, take a different approach. This time try to keep everything about her family a secret. (Pretend that the first scene has not taken place.) Now decide, whether in such a situation, your best course would be:

• to try to reconcile the two families (how?)
• keep your love a secret between the two of you, or
• see nothing more of each other.

3. In groups develop one of the following role plays and then present it to the class with follow-up discussion:

•	In a suburban street, two families have been at loggerheads for years. Their neighbours try to patch things up by inviting both families to a neighbourhood barbecue, but quarrelling again breaks out.
•	In modern Belfast, a theatre company is about to put on Romeo and Juliet. The cast discuss the pros and cons of setting the play in modern Belfast making the feud between the Montagues and Capulets one based on religion.
•	In modern Yugoslavia, a Serb boy falls in love with a Croat girl. How do the parents react?
•	The daughter of a Greek (or Italian, or Turkish, Indian, or Iraqi) family, who have been in Australia for a number of years, is told by her parents that they are arranging a marriage between her and a young man from the homeland? How do they break the news to her? What is her reaction?

4. Compile a list of films and books you have read where two lovers are torn apart due to external factors.

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