I was thinking today about how often people accidentally lump Mercutio in with the Montagues, since he’s a friend of Romeo and doesn’t hold much love for Tybalt. That’s of course not true, otherwise his “A plague on both your houses!” would make no sense.

Casual audiences forget that Mercutio is actually a kinsman to the Prince himself. It’s pretty easy to forget, because … tell me again how it plays into the story?

I was trying to figure this out. Mercutio needs to be neither Montague nor Capulet, that’s clear. But Shakespeare could have just given him no affiliation. He doesn’t have to be related to the Prince, does he?

What about Romeo’s banishment? The Prince walks in to the bloodbath that was Tybalt/Mercutio/Romeo. He’s told that his kinsmen Mercutio is dead, murdered by Tybalt. Tybalt, likewise, is murdered by Romeo. Romeo’s gone.

The Prince, despite having promised execution for anybody that disturbs the streets again, decides on banishment for Romeo. How much do we think this decision has to do with the fact that it’s Mercutio we’re talking about? If Tybalt had murdered, say, Benvolio…then what? Does the Prince still call for banishment, or Romeo’s head?

This is the only place I can think of where the relationship between Mercutio and the Prince might have played into the story. Is there another one?

I don’t know why this article exists – it has neither header nor footer telling me, and the headline is merely “Shakespeare” – but the author provides a bullet list of nothing but a bunch of anecdotes about actors performing Shakespeare.

Some favorites:

• While working with Sir Donald Wolfit, Eric Porter ran into a problem at a school matinee performance of “Macbeth.” Wolfit disliked schoolchildren’s giggling during a performance, so he told the schoolchildren before the play started that there was absolutely no reason to laugh during “Macbeth.” However, Porter was playing the porter, who is a humorous character, and he said afterwards, “I had to stand on my head, practically, before I could raise a giggle!”
• While performing Shakespeare in the open air in Africa during the late 1960s, actress Judi Dench received a scare one night. She looked at the audience, saw the silhouette of a figure with horns, and thought, “The Devil’s here!” The horned figure turned out to be a goat that had wandered into the audience.
• Fred Astaire was not a reader. He once asked his son-in-law about the story of “Romeo and Juliet.” His son-in-law explained that it was like “West Side Story.”

No idea if they’re all true or what, I’m just fascinated by the random compilation that I stumbled across.