No Wedding! Why?

In the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare elects not to show the wedding. I am going investigate why he choose to do this.

Here are some ideas that he would do this.

1.The play was written for an audience to watch in one viewing(time).

2.It was a live play so setting up for a wedding would require lots of preparation.

3. Everyone knows what a wedding is, so it wouldn’t be hard for people to quickly imagine the scene.

I began to investigate my first idea and the first website I went to was my classmate Michael Fourie’s blog on Elizabethan Theatre. I acquired a couple of facts to support my idea. Plays had to be done in the day time when sun light was abounded because candelas weren’t a sufficient source of light. The requirement of sunlight puts another time constriction on the play. The setup for the wedding would require makeup and extravagant dresses which would completely change the scene add more time to the already lengthy play. Weddings were a well known event at this time period so people wouldn’t loose much context on what is going on in the play.

I think that Shakespeare was wise to not show the wedding as it would only add time to the already lengthy play.

Sources:
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-theatre.htm