Samson, Gregory, and the Herdsmen in Romeo and Juliet and Caius Marius

Samson, Gregory, and the Herdsmen in Romeo and Juliet and Caius Marius Throughout Shakespeare’s plays, there are minor characters that often occur for only one scene. These characters have a short dialogue which seems rather meaningless to the play; however, these dialogues usually foreshadow or summarize events and themes of the play. Although they have little effect on the movement of the play, they give insight into the underlying themes of the play. Comparing these minor characters and their scenes in three different versions of Romeo and Juliet (the Shakepeare edition, the Garrick edition, and Otway’s adaptation, Caius Marius) show the differences in the focus of each version. In the Shakepeare and Garrick versions, the minor characters are Samson and Gregory who appear as the play opens. In Otway’s version, the minor characters are the herdsmen in Act IV. Samson and Gregory in the Shakespeare Edition Samson and Gregory appear in Act I, Scene I of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Their playful dialogue sets the tone of the play and addresses one of its key issues, that of the feuding families. This feud leads to the fighting which takes place throughout the play, the first of which is begun by Samson and Gregory, servingmen of Capulet. In the play, most everyone has accepted the fighting between the Monatgues and Capulets, even Romeo battles, but some see the problems with the fighting while others merely fight blindly. Although Samson and Gregory both start the first brawl of the play, the two characters display the aforementioned difference of opinions on fighting. The first to speak, Samson, sees the fighting as something that he must do and he brags about his skill as a tyrant. He begins by saying, "On my word,... ...light key themes of the play. The Shakespeare version highlights the feud as a source of turmoil and distress. The Garrick, by omitting many passages, emphasizes the fighting instead of the reasoning behind the feud. The Otway, on the other hand, focuses on political strife and reflects the Exclusion Crisis and the threat of civil war in England at the time by reflecting these ideas in the feud. These small, but key passages, are important tools for gaining insight into the themes of the plays. Works Cited Canfield, J. Douglas. "Thomas Otway." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Paula R. Backsheider. vol 80. Rochester: The Gale Group, 1989. Hedgcock, Frank A. A Cosmopolitan Actor: David Carrick and His French Friends. Buffield and Company, 1912. Wallace, John M. "Otway’s Caius Marius and the Exclusion Crisis." Modern Philology. 85 (1998): 363-372.