Cambridge School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
The edition that expects you to stand up and say the lines.
Shakespeare wrote this to be acted, so the way to learn it is to perform it, in a classroom, a hall or a drama studio.
You learn a play by saying it out loud with other people, or you teach people who do.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: Shakespeare’s language. The editors say plainly that this is not a cut-down or simplified version.
Changes: the left-hand page, which carries a summary of the action, explanations of words and activities on stagecraft, character and language.
The text follows G. Blakemore Evans’s New Cambridge Shakespeare and is not simplified. Each left-hand page has a summary, word notes and activities on stagecraft, character, themes and language, meant for a classroom, a hall or a drama studio.
Whose story is it?
whoever is playing them. The edition keeps asking you to decide for yourself what a character wants.
How much time does it ask?
The fourth edition, 2014, edited by Rob Smith in the series Rex Gibson founded.
From the edition’s own introduction: readers are invited to “lift the words from the page.”
Where to find it
Buy the paperback — Bookshop.org
Other ways to get it: Paperback — Amazon · Ebook — Kobo · Kindle — Amazon
Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby · Find at your library — WorldCat
More ways into Verona: The Folger Shakespeare Library edition · No Fear Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet · The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, ed. René Weis