Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ gets a modern twist at Folger Theatre

By D. Kevin McNeirSpecial to the AFRO

As college students in America attain highschool, the place they anxiously look ahead to getting their driver’s license, having fun with their first encounter with “real love,” even dreaming about transferring on to school and, for the primary time, being on their very own, there’s one other impediment they have to face earlier than receiving their diploma: conquering the works of William Shakespeare. 

Broadly thought of to be the preeminent dramatist and one of the vital influential writers within the English language, Shakespeare, often known as “The Bard,” stands on the prime of the Western canon of nice literary figures.  

However for a lot of college students, significantly these of shade or those that come from faculties that lack satisfactory monetary and educational assets, Shakespeare looms like an evil specter – a ghostly determine with phrases they battle to know and with characters and storylines that bear little resemblance to the world through which they reside. 

Nevertheless, the occasions, they’re a-changin’. A minimum of that’s the case in Washington, D.C., the place the Folger Theatre, which is affiliated with Folger Shakespeare Library, is at present providing a jaw-dropping, recent tackle certainly one of The Bard’s most beloved tragedies, “Romeo and Juliet.”     

Raymond O. Caldwell, born in Germany to a Black man and German girl, and an completed, award-winning director and producer, makes his directorial debut on the Folger. And whereas remaining true to the textual content, Caldwell dismantles any preconceived notions one may need about Shakespeare and his love story of two teenagers which, due to political tribalism and their households’ thirst for affect and energy, ends tragically. 

Because the curtain rises, the refrain, garbed in hooded black robes, takes middle stage to talk the prologue, nonetheless delivered throughout the protected confines of the literary type acquainted to Shakespeare and historically employed in seventeenth century poems of affection – the Petrarchan sonnet. However that’s the place the similarities finish. 

From then on, the director shocks our senses with a Romeo (Cole Taylor) and Juliet (Caro Reyes Rivera) which can be each individuals of shade; Juliet’s nurse who, like Juliet and her mom, communicate each English and Spanish; and characters who indulge within the frequent, misguided use of each alcohol and cocaine. 

The rear of the stage is dominated by screens which challenge pictures and phrases – exemplifying the dominance of social media and different fashionable technological advances, like Iphones, on society – which continually juxtaposes with the rhythmic cadence of Shakespeare’s classical iambic pentameter. For instance, a number of the playwright’s most enduring traces are delivered because the characters reside chat, submit messages on their social media accounts and textual content each other – typically, whereas using the District’s Pink Line practice on their solution to “Verona.”

Maybe these adjustments to the play are so simply embraced by the viewers as a result of they characterize our actuality – the world through which we reside, work and play. 

As for the actors, themselves, they additional illustrate twenty first century American society with a forged of Black, White, Asian and Hispanic thespians, interracial marriages and bilingual audio system. Some main characters, like Tybalt and Mercutio, are recast as girls, straying from Shakespeare’s unique model of the roles. 

On his web site, Caldwell describes himself as one who’s “drawn to the grandiose and the grotesque, the transcendent and the trashy. My aesthetic usually pays homage to tug, club-kid, queer, Black, Filipinx and popular culture.”  

As for the staging of the play, Caldwell situates “Romeo and Juliet” in a fictitious world harking back to Washington, D.C., as he examines the violent penalties when programs like household, faith and authorities fail to guard and information society’s youth. 

“Because the younger lovers navigate their world of chaos and battle, our model of the play challenges audiences to grapple with how wealth, class, substance abuse, mass media consumption, politics and tribalism form our capability for love and exacerbate violence,” Caldwell mentioned in an announcement.  

Caldwell added that his reimagined “Romeo and Juliet” is a part of a broader motion to make the humanities extra inclusive.

“Playwrights, designers, administrators, universities and regional theaters are working collectively to redefine the theatre for the age we reside in . . .,  making theatre accessible to communities that lengthy have been disenfranchised and are giving voice to tales which have lengthy woven the American tapestry however who’ve gone unheard,” he mentioned. 

Karen Ann Daniels, the theater’s creative director and director of programming for the Folger Shakespeare Library, mentioned one of many the explanation why “Romeo and Juliet” was chosen for the present season is due to its timeliness as a result of election.

“As a result of we, in addition to the Folger Shakespeare Library, are inside shut proximity to Congress, the Capital and the Library of Congress, meaning we will have conversations about democracy in ways in which others can not,” she mentioned. “We search to pique one’s whereas by no means urgent guests to our advanced to decide on sides.” 

Daniels additionally mentioned the basic play “has the widest attraction.” 

“Individuals appear to see themselves on this planet of the play,” she added, though there’s some disconnect. 

“Shakespeare continues to be studied in faculties and his works are even embedded in American tradition – from cartoons to films,” Daniels mentioned. “Nevertheless, one of many the explanation why many youths and adults alike don’t perceive Shakespeare is due to the way in which he’s offered – he’s not at all times pleasant to youthful or ethnically various communities and audiences.”

A part of the ethos of the Folger Shakespeare Library – and the theater by affiliation – is making the famed playwright extra accessible to modern-day audiences. And up to date renovations to the Library, together with reimagined productions like “Romeo and Juliet” will, hopefully, draw morw individuals via the doorways and advance their mission, Daniels added.

“This play has all of it – its forged is multicultural, the present is completed bilingually and there are blended relationships, all of which function a metaverse of the world. We’ve had a number of teams of highschool college students from the realm come see the present and amongst their feedback, I’ve heard them say that with the usage of social media infused within the manufacturing, it’s like watching a film. As they go on to school, or out into the workforce, we hope they’ll perceive that this establishment is for them,” she mentioned. 

“That is the work we do: We current the performs of Shakespeare. However we accomplish that as a result of we would like individuals to reply to him and his works whereas opening him as much as individuals in ways in which make them really feel like they aren’t small however moderately a part of his world.”

For extra details about “Romeo and Juliet” or to go to the newly renovated Folger Shakespeare Library, which anchors the world’s largest Shakespeare assortment, go to www.folger.edu. “Romeo and Juliet” continues via Nov. 10 on the Folger Theatre.