Balcony Scene

I took an early walk down to the Broadway in crisp, sunny weather to post a birthday card at the Post Office and deliver a parcel of clothes to the charity shop. I couldn’t resist taking a very quick snap of the sky while it was still a glorious deep colour.

The Broadway shop fronts are nothing to write home about, so I’ve cropped them out, but I rather like the architecture on the floors above. I particularly like the balconies in this photo, and the one with pillars looks perfect for a bit of Shakespeare declaiming:

Romeo, on stage: "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."

 [Enter Juliet aloft]

Juliet: "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" 

The only trouble with that is, the word ‘balcony’ apparently didn’t come into common usage until after Shakespeare had died (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), so he wouldn’t have recognised the term ‘balcony scene’ with which we are so familiar today. Juliet merely appears at a window on the upper level of the theatre stage, which is a common theatrical device. One website I interrogated explains that families in late medieval Italy would heavily restrict the movements of unmarried girls, who would spend most of their time confined at home sewing, usually near a tall window. This provided illumination for the needlework but also gave the girl a view of the outside world which she was not able to experience at first hand herself.

So somehow my blip has segued from a trip to the charity shop straight to a scene from Romeo and Juliet, which actually is not unusual for me. You have to feel sorry for Smithers, he has to put up with this all the time …

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/romeo-and-juliets-balcony-scene-doesnt-exist/381969/