Well, I came up with this as I was watching versions of i Romeo & Juliet /I in English today. As I read exerts from ye olde English script of the play, put my iTunes on shuffle, gorge on BBQ chips, and drink Pepsi... with caffine, I give you this little story
I don't own RENT.
Act II, Scene ii
By Donna
Mark set up his camera. He looked down at it and smiled. It was being quite well behaved. It didn't jam for two days. Either it was bored making Mark's life a living hell, or it might have learned its lesson.
"Angel, please! Just say it! 'Ay, me,'" Mark begged.
"... 'Ay me!'" Angel squealed, "Who the hell says that?"
"It's in Old English, honey," Mimi said, playing with her dress.
Angel fumed. "Fine. Fine." She feigned fainting, brining her hand to her forehead. "Ayyyy meeee..."
"Guys, can we hurry up!" Collins yelled, dangling on the fire escape. "I really, really want to get this over with!"
Mark sighed. "Come on, pull yourself together!"
A personal dream of Mark was to do his own version of Romeo & Juliet. It seemed a little corny, clichéd even, but he loved Shakespeare. It was a common interest that he had shared with Collins for a while, now. So Collins gladly assisted as Romeo. Mimi was slightly miscast as the Nurse, but it was only because she didn't want to memorize all the soliloquies that came with Juliet's parts. Angel, always wanting to be the center of attention, wanted to be Juliet very much. She just didn't want to stick to the damn script.
"Okay," Mark said, "Let's try again, from As daylight doth."
Collins nodded. He found himself clinging to dear life on the fire escape. Angel sat on the windowsill, watching. Sure, Collins was supposed to be in hiding, but Mark wasn't able to afford complex camera angles and proper scenery. So Angel had to be looking inside her room, er, Mark and Roger's loft.
"Action!" Mark yelled.
Collins said, in an excellent acting tone, "As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven..."
Angel made a point to look up into the skies above. Mark made sure to show that. Then he quickly went back to Collins.
"...Would through the airy region stream so bright
The birds would sing and think if were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand..."
Angel leaned into her hand, playing with the plastic tiara in her hair and smoothing her table cloth/Disney princess/thrift store goodness creation.
"...O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!"
Angel tried to hide the fact that she found that line a mixture of corny and disturbing. Then she remembered how Collins was so adamant about recreating Shakespeare, and how Mark was determined to make everything work, and she decided to focus.
So she said, in a breathy voice, "Ay me."
Mark smiled.
Collins tried to hide slightly behind the cold metal, murmuring:
"O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious as the night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the wite-upturned wond'ring eyes
Of mrals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air."
Mimi snickered. Mark turned his head and hushed her.
Then came Angel's big part.
"O, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name,
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Schunard."
"Angel!" Mark yelled.
"It's called 'artistic license,'" Angel said, batting her eyelashes.
Mark sighed. "Fine."
"If our parents found out we were together, they'd be fighting like the Capulets and the Monowhatsits," Angel added.
"Montague," Collins corrected.
"Yeah, them," Angel said. She fixed her tiara. "Okay. Okay. Let's keep going."
"Yeah," Mark said, "We'll keep that... er. Yeah. Action."
Collins continued, "Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?"
Angel tried to pour her heart out as she spoke
"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague..."
She rose up and walked out onto the fire escape. She grabbed Collins' by the chin, grinning. She continued:
"Nor arm..." she moved to his arms, which were wrapped on the fire escape, "...nor face..."she put her face close to his and planted a kiss on his lips, "...or any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!"
"This is getting pretty hot," Mimi added.
Mark sighed. "They're not supposed to..."
Angel placed another kiss on Collins' lips and said:
"...What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And, for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself."
They began to kiss again, until before you knew it, Collins was half-way over the fire escape, on Angel. Angel clung to the windowsill for dear life as the next line was lost in the passion.
Mark groaned. "Guys! Come on!"
Mimi laughed. "I like Shakespeare!"
"Can you two get inside first?" Mark begged.
They looked up and nodded. "Sure."
They crawled inside and made a beeline for the couch.
"We need to do this more often!" Angel chirped. "What's the one with the skull? Let's do that one!"
Mark sighed, looking at his camera. "I'm so sorry you had to see that."
END