premise: The story of Romeo and Juliet, the 'star-cross'd lovers', is one of the most popular of all time, and has been told in several different versions. Best known is the play Romeo and Juliet, which nearly everyone reads in school and which introduced such famous lines as 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. ' Written and first performed in the 1590s, this highly poetical work of English theatre is set in Italy, where the legend of Romeo and Juliet and their warring families originates. In the 18th century, the actor and producer David Garrick adapted the original play to remove material considered indecent. Among other changes, he changed references to Rosaline, Romeo's girlfriend at the start of the play, to references to Juliet, so that Romeo already knows and loves Juliet at the start of the play, and the theme is faithfulness rather than love at first sight. The original text was restored in the 19th century, with a sensational production at Sadler'S Wells Theatre, London, starring the American sisters Charlotte and Susan Cushman as Romeo and Juliet. 'Gender-bending' is part of the play's tradition: in its early days, men played all the roles. By all accounts Charlotte Cushman was entirely convincing as Romeo. After seeing the Cushmans at Sadler's Wells, Queen Victoria noted in her journal that 'no-one would ever have imagined she was a woman. ' In the 20th century, Romeo and Juliet took to the screen in a series of films, including Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 Technicolor epic, which was the first to cast unknown teenagers as the leads and to feature a controversial nude wedding scene, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 version for the MTV generation, with a soundtrack of pop hits and gun battles instead of sword fights. The most popular film version of Romeo and Juliet is West Side Story, in which the Jets and the Sharks, rival gangs in New York City, replace the feuding Montages and Capulets, and Romeo and Juliet become Tony and Maria. West Side Story also changes the ending so that one of the central couple survives; this version won 10 Academy Awards in 1961, making it the most acclaimed film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet to date. Who knows what twist on Romeo and Juliet we'll see next?
hypothesis: Queen Victoria never went to the theatre.