Romeo and Juliet by Madeline
I'm going to be perfectly honest: I was dreading Aquila Theatre's performance of Romeo and Juliet. While I'm not one of those Shakespeare purists who insist on every Shakespeare play being performed exactly as it was written and with no artistic liberties taken, I think there's a fine line between presenting a play in a new, creative way and mangling it beyond recognition. I was certain that Aquila would cross that line. I thought that their minimal cast and unusual casting methods would turn Shakespeare's classic play into a confusing disaster.
As I watched the performance, I decided that I had been partially right. The method of drawing roles from a bag worked out all right during the performance I saw, but there were a hundred ways it could have gone badly. I personally was looking forward to seeing a homosexual Romeo and Juliet because I wanted to see if the actors could make it work, and was almost disappointed to see that the two actors chosen to play the title characters looked just like the thousands of other actors who have played Romeo and Juliet before. But I guess it was a good thing that the main roles were played traditionally; I don't know if the majority of the audience would have been okay with two men (or two women) playing the famous lovers. The two female characters who were played by men (Lady Capulet and the Nurse) were very funny when they were played by men, especially the Nurse. However, their comic appearances that worked so well during comic scenes were almost a distraction during the dramatic parts of the play.
None of this critisism is aimed at the actors of Aquila Theatre - each one of them played his or her role wonderfully, and I was awed by the way they could effortlessly become their roles with no help except a simple costume piece. The entire cast did an incredible job portraying all the vital roles with minimal costumes and even less of a set. I would attend an Aquila performance again, if only to see these incredible actors perform again.
On average, I enjoyed the play. However, I've seen a total of four stage and film versions of Romeo and Juliet, and I've read the script, so I was fairly familiar with the play and was therefore able to follow the plot despite the unusual cast and the fact that Aquila left out several scenes that appear in the original play. I would recommend this performance only to a person who was very familiar with Romeo and Juliet, as well as Shakespeare in general. I felt sorry for anyone for whom Aquila's performance was their first Shakespeare show. I'm afraid they left the show feeling a little confused.
Aquila Theatre did a wonderful job of taking an extremely well-known and overdone play and making it seem new with their fresh approach to the casting and the script. However, their play was aimed at a very specific audience: one who is so familiar with Romeo and Juliet that they want to see a theater company go to extreme lengths to make the material seem fresh, and won't mind the company deleting characters and entire scenes from the original play in order to accomplish this goal. I don't know how many of those people were at Stephens Auditorium that night.
As I watched the performance, I decided that I had been partially right. The method of drawing roles from a bag worked out all right during the performance I saw, but there were a hundred ways it could have gone badly. I personally was looking forward to seeing a homosexual Romeo and Juliet because I wanted to see if the actors could make it work, and was almost disappointed to see that the two actors chosen to play the title characters looked just like the thousands of other actors who have played Romeo and Juliet before. But I guess it was a good thing that the main roles were played traditionally; I don't know if the majority of the audience would have been okay with two men (or two women) playing the famous lovers. The two female characters who were played by men (Lady Capulet and the Nurse) were very funny when they were played by men, especially the Nurse. However, their comic appearances that worked so well during comic scenes were almost a distraction during the dramatic parts of the play.
None of this critisism is aimed at the actors of Aquila Theatre - each one of them played his or her role wonderfully, and I was awed by the way they could effortlessly become their roles with no help except a simple costume piece. The entire cast did an incredible job portraying all the vital roles with minimal costumes and even less of a set. I would attend an Aquila performance again, if only to see these incredible actors perform again.
On average, I enjoyed the play. However, I've seen a total of four stage and film versions of Romeo and Juliet, and I've read the script, so I was fairly familiar with the play and was therefore able to follow the plot despite the unusual cast and the fact that Aquila left out several scenes that appear in the original play. I would recommend this performance only to a person who was very familiar with Romeo and Juliet, as well as Shakespeare in general. I felt sorry for anyone for whom Aquila's performance was their first Shakespeare show. I'm afraid they left the show feeling a little confused.
Aquila Theatre did a wonderful job of taking an extremely well-known and overdone play and making it seem new with their fresh approach to the casting and the script. However, their play was aimed at a very specific audience: one who is so familiar with Romeo and Juliet that they want to see a theater company go to extreme lengths to make the material seem fresh, and won't mind the company deleting characters and entire scenes from the original play in order to accomplish this goal. I don't know how many of those people were at Stephens Auditorium that night.
posted by ISC On Stage @ 8:29 AM
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