Organizing the conversation

I've printed out what I think is the substance of all the postings on what characters are doing and why in each scene of Romeo and Juliet after the beginning of Act III. I'll give everybody a copy, and I'll put the Web text up on the screen.

Rather than having people present what their character says and does, we'll take time to read through the summary, and invite people to offer any explanations or elaborations, ask any questions, etc.  One thing I'd like to attend to if possible this afternoon is what each whole scene seems to do for (or to) an audience, and think about alternatives (what else might Shakespeare have done?).

Some people will have seen the wonderful experience Theatre Saint Thomas has made of the script; others won't.  I'd like if possible to keep this particular production in the background and talk about what we see in the script itself.  Issues of the sorts of choices Ilkay Silk and her cast and crew made will come up, I hope, on people's Web sites and on the Ceilidh forum over the next few days.  Remember, as I said in the last prompt:

Everyone should, of course, see the production of Romeo and -- as before -- post a reflection on the whole experience on your Web site, this time calling the file romeo.htm. In this case, though, what I'd like you to do after you've posted your reflection on the experience of seeing the play is then to go to the Romeo forum on ceilidh, where at the top there'll be a posting asking you to invite others to read and respond to your Web site reflection. What you should do there is describe in a sentence what you say in the longer posting and invite any response you like: be specific if you want, be general if you want.  But at the bottom make a link back to your Web posting, simply by typing in the URL, in the form http://people.stu.ca/~gwxyz/romeo.htm, where gwxyz is your ID.

Everyone should read, and respond on the forum to, at least a couple of these postings before the beginning of next week.

There will be a final English prompt on Tuesday, outlining how I think we can bring closure to our exploration of literary texts and how we read them.