ABSTRACT
Chorus is normally an affair of doubling. Gower can usually, not always, look forward to an unshared part; Chorus in Henry V, always. But all other Shakespearean choruses and prologues are luxury castings for individual actors, which depend upon spacious production values. Chorus, in William Arrowsmith's words, remained the conservative soul of the play, the articulate spokesman for traditional religion and society. Romeo and Juliet, as we have seen, is an easy instance of standard casting procedures. Montague or the Prince will do neatly as the choric twin. But this play is a primitive for our purposes. Romeo and Juliet is not, so to speak, an intelligent play; it is totally unlike the intelligence-loaded Julius Caesar or Troilus and Cressida. Romeo and Juliet is a play where everyone can hardly claim to know better than the chorus; the conflicts on stage are literal and physical, not intellectual. Chorus presents in sharp focus the main issues of doubling.
