Juliet and Romeo: An Alternative Comedy by Mohammad I. Aljayyousi

This Play is the copyright of the Author and must NOT be Performed without the Author's PRIOR consent

Scene 1: (Churchyard)
Enters Narrator

NARRATOR: Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...

Enters Romeo

ROMEO: Step aside man, I have important things to do. I am going to die for love

NARRATOR: Is it the scene where you drink the poison and then stab yourself with a dagger, yaaay (exits)

ROMEO [sees Juliet body]
O here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
My love! My wife! Forgive me, dear Juliet.
Come, bitter conduct.
Here's to my love! ( he drinks the poison)
JULIET [wakes]

Romeo! What's here? Poison.
Drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after…O, happy dagger!
This is thy sheath!

She kills herself …

The scene freezes and Shakespeare enters

SHAKESPEARE: At last, my tragedy about love is finished ... perfectly with sacrifice. Now, the love story can live on as a legend and everyone will talk about Romeo and Juliet who died for love, love that remained an idea… this end served my selfish purposes as a writer, but is this an end they would have chosen if they had had the freedom? What if I let them decide, what if I gave them that freedom…

(The scene moves backward in reverse motion to the point when Juliet is about to kill herself, the actors can use indistinct sounds for fun like in reverse recordings)

ROMEO [enters and sees Juliet body]
O here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
My love! My wife! Forgive me, dear Juliet.
Come, bitter conduct.
Here's to my love! (Juliet wakes up before he drinks the poison)
JULIET: Oh, Romeo, Romeo
ROMEO: Oh dear, you are alive…
NARRATOR: And they live together as one family. Happily ever after??? You think so???? You suppose so???? You believe so??? You wish so?? Let’s so.. ehh … see.

(He steps aside but remains on stage) The next scene is played in fast motion by actors and it represents the passage of time in their life as a married couple going through all the normal stages like Honey moon … pregnancy … children … motherhood … house chores … honey (without moon) … boredom … work … time and age… (He points with his arm for the next scene to start)
Fast forward scenes with the narrator commenting briefly … She is pregnant, they sit with children around, she complains, she feels bored, he is busy with his work, she is a mother, they grow old…