Romeo and Juliet: A Facebook Tragedy
Project Outline and Objective
Originally, our group wanted to explore how the popular online social networking website Facebook.com could be used to adapt the classic Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet into a more interesting, easily-accessible form. In an age where most people are familiar with online social networking sites, we thought this format would be especially relevant and engaging for readers familiar with the site. However, since the site has a very simple, user-friendly design, readers who are unfamiliar with the program will also be able to explore the text as we have created it.
This project was intended to be an exploration of nonlinear storytelling and character development. Since Facebook has such a variety of different forums for interaction, we felt that using those forums for different parts of the play would cause the text to appear more interactive for users. Also, we assumed from the beginning of the project that, due to the limited descriptions offered of the characters, a certain amount of inferences about their likes/dislikes/etc. would be needed in order to fill out Facebook profiles. We saw this as a means of creating more complete personas for the characters based on their dialogue and actions within the text. We felt that this would allow users to become more invested in the characters.
We also intended to take advantage of the Facebook program and the optional applications it offers in order to model and map the social network of the characters in the play. Facebook tracks social relationships through "friend" connections, and therefore provides at-a-glance means of gleaning which characters know and/or interact with others. The virtual social sphere we created was meant to mirror the city of Verona and the events of the play in the same way a theater and cast of human characters would for a performance. We were interested to see if anything was gained or lost by using this virtual means of performance.
This was also an exploration of how role-playing games can potentially be used as models or simulations of events in plays and/or novels.
The easy user interface and wealth of applications allows for profiles to be customized and individualized in order to reflect and add depth to the characters. Our aim is not to duplicate the story, but instead to delve further into the characters and story in a manner that is more engaging and accessible than dialogue in a book of plays. We made Facebook pages for each character and reenacted the first act of the play
What are Social Networking Websites?
Social networking websites are "web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others withint the system" (Boyd).
What is Facebook?
Facebook.com, which labels itself a "social utility," is one such example fo this type of web-based program. The site is available free to any user with a valid email address. The site is available to everyone and reports 64 million active users, with "active user" defined as being one that has logged on in the past thirty days. The site claims to be "the second most-trafficked PHP [Hypertext Preprocessor] in the world, and one of the largest MySQL [multithreaded, multi-user Structured English Query Language] installations anywhere, running thousands of databases."
Method
We began by creating individual character emails in order to activate Facebook profile pages. After, we were able to sign each character up on the site. We tried to choose emails and create profiles that would best match the ways we intepreted the characters to be. For example, Romeo is consistenty portrayed throughout the play as being a romantic young man who becomes depressed and withdrawn because of the difficulties in his obsessive attachments to various female characters, ie: Rosaline and Juilet.
Creating the profiles presented a challenge for us because the play offers very little in the way of character development. Individual characters are never fully fleshed out, and instead functioin only in their roles throughout the play. For most characters, the dialogue does not give many clues to a larger, more complete personality, leaving us with the challenge of creating them ourselves.
We came to realize that the relationships between characters--especially those who have few lines or who do not immediately speak--are at times hard to interpolate. Due to the social natures of their respective jobs as the prince of the city and a friar in the church, we decided that the characters Prince Escalus (username Escalus Prince) and Friar Laurence (username Laurence Friar) would have universal social contacts with all other characters.
Characters from the Play and Corresponding Facebook Personnas
Romeo - Ro Montagues
Montague, his father - Papa Montagues
Montague's wife - Matriarch Montagues
Benvolio, Montague's nephew - Benvolio Montagues
Abram, Montague's servingman - Abram Monty
Balthasar, Romeo's servingman - Bal Thasar
Juliet - Juliet Capulet
Capulet, her father - Lord Alphonsus Capulet
Capulet's wife - Missy Capulet
Tybalt, her nephew - Tybalt Capulet
Juilet's nurse - Dolores Nurse
Peter, serving man of the Capulets - Peter Cap
Sampson, servingman of the Capulets - Sampson Capu
Gregory, servingman of the Capulets - Gregory Let
Escalus, Prince of Verona - Escalus Prince
Mercutio, the prince's kinsman - Mercutio Prince
County Paris, the prince's kinsman - Paris Prince
Friar Laurence - Laurence Friar
Friar John - John Friar
An Apothecary - Cary Apothe
Rosaline, Romeo's initial love interest - Rosa Line
Friend Wheel of Escalus Prince before start of action in play:
Friend wheel of Escalus Prince after action of play:
Results
The role-playing aspects of this project are similar to that of a model or simulation. From a close reading of the text, we were presented with certain constraints (ie: character traits, personalities, and relationships), and we had to make sure that these constraints were incorporated into our simulation. For example, Tybalt in the play is an angry character. Therefore, he was permitted to only perform angry actions and have angry interactions with others on the site. With these constraints, group members attempted to play out the rest of the story while keeping in mind that certain actions or interactions needed to occur for the plot to move forward. For example, a fight between the Montague and Capulet servingmen had to take place in order for another fight to break out between Benvolio and Tybalt, as well as between Montague and Capulet. Both fights needed to take place for the prince to step in and warn his subjects that further fights would be met with swift discipline. This action was especially important because it influences further events in the play when Romeo is threatened with death and then exiled after he slays Tybalt. Certain non-essential plot points were deleted because they were too difficult to translate into the Facebook medium and other actions in the play did not stem from them.
For Further Reference
(Boyd)
Research Report by Helen Skura
Research Report by Katia Nierle
Research Report by Gregory Gin
Bibliography by Helen Skura
Bibliography by Katia Nierle
Bibliography by Gregory Gin
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