Romeo and Juliet and Layla and Majnun

What makes a canon? What is originality? Who claims authorship? How does a story travel through time and space? Is there such a thing as universal - perhaps love? Romeo and Juliet and Layla and Majnun examines these questions through the lens of names. The forgotten names, erased names, those who make their names, and those who get a bad name. This performance essay takes the audience on a journey through iterations of the famous Balcony Scene from Romeo and Juliet juxtaposed against Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe, Nizami Ganjavi’s Layla and Majnun, and my conversation with ChatGPT. Exploring aforementioned impossible questions while shifting variables of who tells which story, Romeo and Juliet and Layla and Majnun puts the following statement on trial: "For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."