Romeo and Juliet

June 17, Play #3 Romeo and Juliet The Stratford Shakespeare Festival

This production clocked in at three hours and was uncut. My chief impressions were a)Is this often the most underrated Shakespeare? and b)the audience seemed to be either under 18 or over 65. What happened to everyone else?

I've worked on the play- directed it and, of course, like most of us, read it(or parts of it) when I was 13. But what is it about this play that makes it seem so familiar? Is it that the narrative structure is much imitated- like by 99% of all theater that's been produced since it was written? It's so well put together. It's quite remarkable, really. The audience treated it as an almost religious experience- certainly the ritual aspect of the production was in full swing.

Stratford- what an odd experience. The vibe here seems like a cross between "look how big we got" and "yes, you may attend one of our many productions." Maybe it's part of national character of Canada not to get too excited about anything. The way I see it, this is one of the capitals of the world for Shakespeare performances- I want to feel good about the fact that I'm here, not tolerated. And-people are polite and all, but they don't make it easy.

The production was very straight-forward. The director's particular spin was that the play started modern dress, the masquerade was an Elizabethan masquerade and then they all stayed dressed in Elizabethan gear until the very end when everyone dies. It wasn't anything particularly innovative- and besides, with the attending of this play being such a ritual, I'm not sure one needs to do anything particularly innovative.

The kids in the audience really seemed to dig it- so that was cool.

More later about R&J.

Also, I went to see Cabaret- which was pretty good and they spent soooo much money on it.