Making a drama out of a mental health crisis

Abstract

A recent production of Romeo and Juliet at the Globe Theatre in London has foregrounded the themes of mental health and a sick society. My essay begins by exploring the controversial reception of the 2021 production. But Shakespeare's play has a number of key features that are undecidable, by design. These are directly relevant to the kinds of things we are concerned with when it comes to mental health. Perhaps the critics of the 2021 production are therefore missing a trick … And are there not lessons for the mental health of young people today to be taken from the fact that romance seems to have withdrawn from the world of this contemporary Romeo and Juliet?.