The Juliet Effect

Serious About Shakespeare

Since she saw a local production of "Midsummer Night's Dream" in 5th grade, Loretta Doyle was obsessed with Shakespeare, although she would be the last to admit it. While other middle schoolers were introduced to Shakespeare by trudging through "Romeo & Juliet," she had already handled the basic star-crossed-lover story and was exploring the complexities of "King Lear," which impressed her teachers while her classmates labeled her as a "nerd." With all her love for Shakespeare, it was a wonder how she passed any of her other classes in school and college, but she succeeded and passed them with flying colors. Her grade school teachers and college professors were impressed with her always reading a Shakespeare play, especially since she usually went for the complex plays before using the comedies as a way to relax, and they wondered if the plays were an escape from her home life or a simple cure for boredom. Upon further investigation, they were pleased to find that Loretta's family was very encouraging of her love for Shakespeare, so the reason behind her love for the plays remained a mystery. 

Loretta's family was so supportive of her love for Shakespeare that they made her studies into a lighthearted series of games: If one was to ask her what her favorite play was by the Bard, Loretta would either struggle to pick one or perplex the questioner with a rare choice like "Love's Labours Lost" or "Troilus and Cressida." Whenever someone challenges her to recite a sonnet or soliloquy on the spot, she would skip any of Hamlet's well-known musings and sometimes quote Catherine's closing thoughts from "Taming of the Shrew." She would continue these games outside of her family get-togethers, & she soon became a minor celebrity in her hometown, even performing during the annual summer street fair in a one-woman show. From performing a randomly selected scene by herself to seeing how much of a sonnet she could recite while doing a handstand, where her record was a sonnet & a half before having to stop due to being dizzy, people in town enjoyed her and - as much as she tried to humbly dissuade them - tipped her well. Outside of the challenges and performances, Loretta also had fun trying to write extra verses for ditties she would find in some of the plays, even trying to stay in iambic pentameter to fit the Bard's classic rhythm.

Regardless, those who knew her knew that she was serious about Shakespeare, and her love for Shakespeare was what got her hired to work at the local library as soon as she was old enough to start. Thanks to saving money from birthday & graduation cards along with earnings from the library job, as well as tips she received from performing sonnets on the street, she was able to travel through the years to locations that Shakespeare wrote about, from Kronborg Castle in Denmark to the Ardennes Forest in France. Instead of trying to find a touring agency that produced trips to such literary locations, she took individual trips to each location during Christmas or Spring breaks, even when she worked at the library. She also enjoyed dressing up as a 16th-century maiden while attending the local Renaissance festival each year, & she always impressed the real actors with her almost fluent Shakespearean vocabulary.