Modern audience Essay

In Romeo and Juliet, the play is set in the 1590’s, which is a very different way of life than today. So to make the play appeal to an audience of today it needs to be altered a little. I would set it in England. In the bustling city of Newcastle outside of St James’s Park (Newcastle United’s Football Ground). The trouble will occur between two groups of rival football supporters, which are Newcastle (Montague) and Liverpool (Capulet). Two supporters of Liverpool will play the roles of Sampson and Gregory. They will be sitting down outside the stadium waiting for the match to start with a bottle of vodka in a brown paper bag. One will be wearing a black Liverpool coat and blue jeans and the other will wear a Liverpool t-shirt and black jeans. They joke together and boast that they are superior to the Newcastle supporters â€Å"Me they shall feel while I am able to stand, and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.† Then they are faced with two Newcastle supporters (the serving men). They will both be wearing Newcastle shirts and jeans. Sampson and Gregory hesitate whether to cause a bit of trouble or to leave them alone. They decide to annoy the Newcastle supporters, this is to provoke them so they throw the first punch. The Liverpool supporters do this by making gestures indirectly at them. In Elizabethan times biting your own thumb at people was a rude gesture, and this is what Sampson and Gregory do in the play. But this gesture is not so common at all today, so to modernise it, the gesture will be spitting in front of the Newcastle supporters as they walk past. Then the Newcastle supporters ask the two if they spat at them â€Å"Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?† and the Liverpool supporter says no he didn’t do it towards him on purpose. Then enters Benvolio who will be wearing a Newcastle shirt as well, he is a friend of the manager of Newcastle who looks after the stadium. Instead of fighting with swords they will use their fists. Tybalt enters and will be on Liverpool’s side and he quarrels with Benvolio† Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death,† Then they fight. Several supporters join in from round the corner. Then come the police to stop what is now fast becoming a riot. The Liverpool footballers arrive on their bus oblivious to the riot, the manager of the football team (Capulet) is pulled off the bus and is forced to fight his way out. Then arrives the other manager (Montague) on a bus also. The highest rank of the stadium security (Prince Escales) leads the rest of the guards to stop this riot. After the fight has calmed down everyone has been arrested or taken to hospital except Benvolio, Montague and then enters his wife who was supposed to enter at the same time as Montague but in modern days a women would not involve herself in a fight. Montague then worries about his son Romeo he thinks he might have been involved in the brawl â€Å"O where is Romeo? Saw you him today?† Then enters Romeo and it seems he was not in the riot as he is wearing his Newcastle t-shirt and his jeans which are clean and aren’t ripped or torn. Then Benvolio and Romeo talk together about Romeo’s troubles. Which leads into the next scene.