Romeo & Juliet & Vampires

January 1, 2011

Gr 7-10-The vampire craze comes to Verona. Juliet Capulet, dreading her 16th-birthday transition ritual, falls madly in love with Romeo, a Montague from the household that has been slaying her vampire relatives for eons. Despite the truce that Prince Radu has called between the two families, the hatred continues: Juliet's cousin Tybalt kills Romeo's best friend, Mercutio, and a distraught Romeo then slays Tybalt. Banished from the kingdom and fearing for his life, Romeo flees. Friar Laurence launches a plan to help reunite the lovers, but it goes awry. Only when Juliet drinks her dead husband's blood, turning him also into one of the undead, can the two forge a life together beyond Transylvania, away from their families' vengeful mores. For what it is, Gabel has done a credible job of adapting the original story to accommodate the rudiments of vampire lore, using both humor and passion to reel in her readers. The familiar characters are all here, if, generally, in two-dimensional form, and the clear plot moves quickly, but with the tragic ending replaced by a "happy" one. The language, stripped of the beauty of the Bard's poetry, has Mercutio warning that he is about to "punch Benvolio's lights out," and sappy dialogue abounds. Some vocabulary is not explained, and there are some sexual references. While fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005) are bound to be enthralled, those preferring the poignancy of Shakespeare's original love story would be better served by either Bruce Coville's eloquent prose retelling (Dial, 1999) or the dramatic reading found in Audio Partners' "The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare" (Audio Editions, 2003).-Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, The Naples Players, FL

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