Romeo
and Juliet is one of a group of lyrical plays usually dated at 1594-95. The
earliest date that has been proposed for first performance of Romeo and
Juliet is 1591. The play might have begun in about 1591, then laid aside,
and only completed a year or two later. The allusions to Daniel and Eliot
indicate 1953 as the earliest possible date for Romeo and Juliet, the Bad
Quatro makes 1596 the latest. The
tragedy of Romeo and Juliet was almost certainly first performed by
Shakespeare's company - the Chamberlain's Men - in or around 1596, most likely
in the Burbage's Theatre (it may be then on stage in the Curtain theatre where
the company performed in 1597). It has been suggested that Richard Burbage
(1568-1619), the
company's leading man, took the role of Romeo (he would then have been about 28)
and that Juliet was taken by
Master Robert Gough, or Goffe (d. 1624), who seems to have been allocated leading female roles in
Shakespeare's earlier plays. The famous clown William Kemp (d. 1603) probably played the part
of Peter. The
text of the play is complex. It first appeared in print in the short (Bad)
Quatro of 1597 with the following title-page: " AN EXCELLENT conceited
Tragedie of Romeo anf Juliet, As it hath been often (with great applause)
plaid publiquely , by the right Honourable the L. of Hunsdon his Seruants.
LONDON, Printed by Iohn Danter. 1597." This text, though traditionally
maligned as an "unauthoritative" memorial reconstruction of the play
by actors in the company, derived from a version adapted for acting - stage
directions probably record details of the first staging of the play. The text
contains anticipations, recollections, transpositions, paraphrases, summaries,
repetitions and omissions of words, phrases or lines correctly presented in the
next edition. The First Quatro (Q1), piratical and dependent on an especially
unreliable means of transmission for the text, was succeeded by a second (Good)
version. This Second Quatro (Q2) appeared two years later, evidently intended to
supplant the Bad Quatro. Its title page reads: " THE MOST EXCELLENT AND
LAMENTABLE Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. Newly corrected, augmented, and amended:
As it hath bene sundry times publiquely acted, by the right Honourable the Lord
Chamberlaine his Seruants. LONDON. Printed by Thomas Creede, for Cuthbert Burby,
and are to be sold at his shop neare the Exchange. 1599." This
statement means that Q2 is a replacement of the first edition, not a revision of
an earlier version of the play. Q2 is one-third as long again as the first, and
traditionally assumed to have been derived in large part from Shakespeare's
"foul papers"or original draft of the play. All subsequent early
editions - including the version that appares in the 1623 First Folio of
Shakespeare's plays - derive more or less directly from Q2, which is also the
basis of all modern editions of the play.