The Queer Shakespeare: Othello, Romeo and Julien, and Kiss Me, Nate The Gay Taming of the Shrew

From the author of "The Death of Ganymede" comes "The Queer Shakespeare", a bold re-telling of three of Shakespeare's most famous plays. Utilizing language from Shakespeare and his contemporaries, "The Queer Shakespeare" strives to maintain the integrity of the original spirit of authorship while moving the text forward into modern 21st century queer theory. The leap is not egregiously out of context; women were forbidden to appear onstage during the Elizabethan era; thus, men would portray female roles. Desdemona ("Othello, The Moor"), Juliet ("Romeo and Juliet"), and Kate ("The Taming of the Shrew"). Not a female actress would have been among the originators of those roles. Yet, as opposed to a simple pronoun changes in the texts of these plays, Mr. Greiman has taken the more difficult task of adapting the roles to the male sex.

Excerpt from "Romeo and Julien"

Romeo: ‘Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy? Having no defects, why dost thou abhor me? Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine.

Julien: It befits not me unto a stranger to be so bold.

Romeo: Art thou ashamed to kiss? What’s sweet to do, to do will aptly find. Make use of time; let not advantage slip. Beauty within itself should not be wasted. Fair flowers that are not gathered in their prime rot and consume themselves in little time.

The flattery makes Julien self-conscious; he smiles and looks downward.

Romeo: What seest thou in the ground? Hold up thy head; look in mine eyes; there thy beauty lies. Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?

Julien: Skill-less youth for counsel is unfit, and folly oft with hastiness are joined to want of wit. My affections keep order with the limits of my modesty; my love is love of virtue, for if I lose mine honour, I lose myself.

Romeo: Must I fetch a turn about the garden, pitying the pangs of barred affections? My desires run not before mine honor, nor my lusts burn hotter than my faith. If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.

Julien: The occasion is most favourable; let us use it. We must obey the time.

Julien kisses Romeo.

Romeo: What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?

Julien: Give me one kiss; I’ll give it thee again, and one for interest, if thou wilt have it. They kiss again. A summer’s day will seem an hour but short, being wasted in such time-beguiling sport. Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, what bargains may I make, still to be sealing?

Julien: A thousand kisses buys my heart from me; and pay them at thy leisure, one by one. What is ten hundred kisses unto thee? Are they not quickly told and quickly gone? Say, for nonpayment that the debt should double, is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?

They kiss once more.

Romeo: Thou justly may'st boast of perfect shape's renown, and Beauty's sounding praise, whose like hath never liveth in our days. O blessed be the time of thy arrival here! Mercutio's icy hand had all too frozen mine, and of thy goodness thou again hast warmed it with thine. O, thou doth teach the torches to burn bright! Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, for I never saw true Beauty till this night. O! How quick is love!