Romeo and Juliet the play's "twin themes of love and the total breakdown of understanding between two generations" had contemporary relevance. Recent performances often set the play in the contemporary world. For example, in 1986, the Royal Shakespeare Company set the play in modern Verona. Switchblades replaced swords, feasts and balls became drug-laden rock parties, and Romeo committed suicide by hypodermic needle. In 1997, the Folger Shakespeare Theatre produced a version set in a typical suburban world. Romeo sneaks into the Capulet barbecue to meet Juliet, and Juliet discovers Tybalt's death while in class at school. The play is sometimes given a historical
Romeo and Juliet on screen of the protagonists, and ending with their tragic deaths. The conceit of dramatising Shakespeare writing Romeo and Juliet has been used several times. The oddball 1944 B-movie "Time Flies" features the comedy duo Susie and Bill Barton, who, time travelling, encounter a Shakespeare struggling for words for his balcony scene, which Susie (Evelyn Dall) supplies from memory, while Bill interrupts with quips. John Madden's 1998 "Shakespeare in Love" depicts Shakespeare's process in composing "Romeo and Juliet" against the backdrop of his own doomed love affair. Writers Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard exploited another commonplace of Shakespeare-related films, which scholar Tony