Errez, défaillez, péchez, mais soyez des justes.

I performed a retelling of r&j last summer (it was an 80s battle of the band thing and they were both girls which was neat but I digress), and I spent a lot of time just thinking about the play as a whole. When I do a show I have a tendency to become very objective about it in terms of the plot, but also the timeline. This led me to realise something.

These people do not sleep.

We first meet Romeo as he laments over his love for Rosaline. This is fine and great, it sets up his character as someone with investment, who loves deeply and intensely. He loves the idea of love, the idea of loving a person, is in love with someone who just won't love him back and he needs time to process this. Fine.

But also... he's not slept. Based off his conversation with Benvolio, he has no clue of what time it is, has been out walking for hours etc. He's not slept, and you can kind of tell.

This theme continues. The Capulet gathering lasts late into the night, and our famous balcony scene takes place directly after. The fact that they are both up and ready to be wed the morning shows they've both had 2-3 hours max, if any at all.

That very same day, Romeo is exiled. He sees Juliet that night, and they are together until the lark sings, so it's the next day. Again, no sleep.

Juliet spends the next few scenes very planning her escape, while simultaneously missing her husband, and planning a wedding. She then falls into a dreamless coma-like state for two days.

I would imagine Romeo is not sleeping easy being away from Juliet, up until learning of her death.

So, throughout the majority of the play, I think it's safe to say they experience little to no sleep.

I find this fascinating. For me, it hits home that Romeo and Juliet are teenagers. They're funny and intense and love the idea of love, are in love in a way that may seem foolish to adults, because it is so fast and quick. But when you're young, you just don't have enough control over your life.

You find this amazing thing, this person that just catches your eye, matches your manner of speaking (the sonnet when they first meet is the best example of this but I think there might be more). They're just at your level, see you in a way you have never really seen yourself. Why wouldn't you latch on, and try and hold them close?

In my experience, when you're a teenager, you don't sleep a lot. Which says a lot about academic pressure in modern times, sure, but also a lot about mental health.

I've always seen Juliet as a girl incredibly isolated from everyone. In the adaptation I was a part of, she was a teenage pop star, and basically untouchable. She's the only child of Capulet, who is incredibly influential and wealthy. A man older than her mother wants to marry her. Her father is actually considering it. Her parents are distant. Her closest confidant is a middle aged woman who raised her, sure, but just doesn't understand her enough to really get through to her in any way, and ultimately just tells her to suck it up and marry someone she does not know, let alone love in any way.

The fact that Juliet jumps so quickly to threatening suicide in the Friar's cell, and just throughout the play in general speaks volumes about how quickly she can spiral. She's angsty and emotional and distant and tired.

I feel like something Romeo and Juliet does well into leaning into the idea of escapism. These two young people are in a very isolated, very hostile city. Relatives die. Friends die. Your family name in some ways makes you untouchable, while simultaneously places a target on your back. You cannot walk the streets peacefully.

So these scenes in the dark of night, alone in a room, just have this beautifully detached air to them. It reminds me of sitting on my bed at 2 in the morning, messaging a friend about things we can't put into words, stuff we'll never discuss in the light of day, never in person. It's fragile and you can't stop yawning and the sky is gradually getting lighter and you've never felt so helpless about the sun rising.

The love between them is real, absolutely. But they try so hard to be lost in each other, in the romance of it all, that when reality comes back to hit, they both seem to snap.

I studied this play in school when I was quite young, and I'm ashamed to say I was an absolute Romeo hater. He just came off as creepy to me, and I didn't really understand a lot of Shakespeare's language/just couldn't appreciate what the characters were actually saying. He's definitely grown on me.

I like him best when he's played as a bit of a wet cat. Bit of a loser, dragged out of the house by his very cool, but also slightly unhinged best friend and his cousin who's literally just rolling with the punches and doing his best. One of my good friends played Romeo in my adaptation, and I think she absolutely locked in on making her version a loser lesbian which was perfect. Romeo is really trying to fix things with love, and it's just not going to work bud, might as well get in some more sleep before everyone around you gets back to swinging swords.

Circling back to the lack of sleep: am I saying the tragic events could have been avoided if Romeo and Juliet actually got their 8 hours? No. Sleep deprivation can absolutely make you become very emotionally intense, wired, and maybe a bit impulsive, but I don't think Romeo killing Tybalt was a result of this. We would all kill more if it was true. (In my opinion anyway but idk I don't know your life like that.)

To pinpoint on this particular scene, I always find it fascinating how deliberate Tybalt's murder is. Romeo could have absolutely just left it alone. Tybalt would have almost definitely been exiled for killing the prince's relative, especially since it was a direct result of the family conflict.

But no, Romeo decides to kill him. It's grief, vengeance, guilt, and these kids never have enough time to process any of their losses or regrets, they just have to keep clawing their way through to make it to the end, where they can have that chance of happiness.

When you're a teenager, all you can really do is wait. Wait to be old enough to move out, stand on your own, be taken seriously, just leave. Just rest.

Being young is very intense. I find Juliet interesting because while she is seen as a great romantic heroine, she's so desperate. She's depressed, and she needs this. She needs love, she deserves it, she deserves to sleep each night next to someone who loves her unconditionally and knows her mind.

I feel like I'm rambling. My point is, I find Romeo and Juliet so interesting because you can see these subtle details in how much they're unraveling, and have been for a long time. Even before the events of the play, to be honest.

I would love to watch an adaptation where they lean into this sense of sleep deprivation, where they're struggling and going through quick mood swings and are physically showing signs that they haven't slept.

Hands shaking when holding a weapon, hands that can only be stilled by the gasp of their lover. Dark shadows, hair mussed by a pillow, heads nodding during long speeches. I would love for Romeo to be actively zoning out during the Queen Mab monologue only to be startled back by Mercutio grabbing him to gesture. Things like that.

They're exhausted, but they need to be awake. The night is the only time they can be together, in private, away from the eyes of adults who blame them for being so tired. They need to last for each other. And when it gets to the end, they just can't do it any longer. Romeo can't sit with her for an extra few minutes. He's done. Sleep time.

He arrives at the crypt. Paris is there. He's just so tired. Juliet is gone. He came here for a reason. Why delay the time where they can be side by side, resting in death?

And then she wakes up, and Romeo is gone. She wakes up. And it hurts. She can't last any longer. So she does what she had sworn she would do several scenes about.

So, yeah. I fixate on the idea that they don't get any sleep, because it's a reminder that they are children. They aren't too young, no, they aren't too immature or impulse. The world has screwed them over. Instead of being angry, they find love in the darkness of the night, a time where they would probably still be awake, looking out into the light of the moon and questioning why life is this way.

At least when they're up, head throbbing, eyes heavy, there's someone next to them. A head on a shoulder. Whole body drooping. Fighting the pull of unconsciousness, because they need to savour this moment forever.

Throughout my own life, I've had extremely poor sleep. This started as young as 7, where I would read books by torch, straining my eyes, because my mind was so full with emotions I couldn't articulate and I just couldn't rest. But at sleepovers, with other people, I could whisper in a friend's ear and know I was being heard. We would be awake until two in the morning, delirious and wired off sugar and too many deep emotions, but our minds would connect and we could just say something, anything, and be understood.

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