ROMEO AND JULIET BACKGROUND CONTEXTUALIZING SHAKESPEARE CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES NEW BRUNSWICK NEW BRUNSWICK SHAKESPEARE PLAYS IN NON-TRADITIONAL WAYS

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1 STUDENT

2 T A B L E O F C ON T E N T S ROMEO AND JULIET BACKGROUND 2 PG. 3 CONTEXTUALIZING SHAKESPEARE PG. 4 CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES PG. 5 NEW BRUNSWICK CONTEXT PG. 6 NEW BRUNSWICK CULTURE PG. 7 SHAKESPEARE PLAYS IN NON-TRADITIONAL WAYS PG.9 Romeo & Juliet - Fight Training with Jean-Francois Gagnon Post show Q&A session for students following The Rocky Horror Show Romeo & Juliet - Shakespeare training with Soulpepper Theatre Post Show Q&A with cast from Frost Nixon, March 2010

3 CONTEXTUALIZING SHAKESPEARE As a director: it has always been important to me to place historical works into a modern context or else: why bother. The performing arts are not museum pieces. They are living breathing works or else there is no place for them there is no need to waste time performing them. I feel strongly that the reason Shakespeare s plays are still being performed 400 years after being written is that the material is so rich and so universal in their themes and ideas that they translate well into every age. Practically speaking, from the point of view of simple story-telling, I have noted that audiences tend to get it when faced with a modern day scenario. Characters and situations are more recognizable. Story lines are clarified. The average audience member can follow the plays without a Phd in literature. Shakespeare did this himself in that many of his plays tended to be modernized versions of much earlier myths, history chronicles, legends or fairy tales. He updated these stories to be clear to his audience. It seems only natural that we should do the same for the benefit of our audiences. Romeo and Juliet, when first produced around 418 years ago, would look and feel very different from a production that would have occurred in each of the last four centuries. Each generation would interpret the play in a manner that fits the particular morality and social conventions of the day. I have every expectation that, should I be able to time travel to the future, Shakespeare s plays will still be studied and performed in centuries to come. I imagine that these plays will be used to portray a very different world with a very different moral compass yet they will still be vital and important and will have meaning for those future audiences. So in that sense there is (nor has there ever been, nor do I think there ever will be) no right way to produce these plays. There is only what works. 4

4 W hen Romeo decides to attend the annual feast of his family s most hated rivals, he does not expect to find himself face-to-face with a Capulet whom he does not intend to duel. The Montagues and the Capulets have been feuding for generations by the time Romeo meets Juliet in this modern spin of the classic tale set in modern-day New Brunswick. As a result the two teenagers find themselves caught between duty to their Anglophone and Francophone families and their sense of desire. They concoct a plan to circumvent the wishes of their respective families, but with more conflicts arising daily it might already be too late! ROMEO AND JULIET BACKGROUND Based on stylistic comparisons to Love Labour s Lost and A Midsummer Night s Dream Shakespeare probably wrote Romeo and Juliet around 1595 or The tale of the ill-fated lovers exists in many forms, but it is likely that the play s main source material was Arthur Booke s 1562 poem, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. Pirated copies of Shakespeare s version first appeared in print in 1597, and were probably reconstructed from memory by scouts who attended the theatrical performances. Another version set from Shakespeare s papers was circulated in 1599 and reprinted several times. Part of what has made Romeo and Juliet so enduring is the boldness with which Shakespeare experimented in writing it; as a play, it transcends genres. In the beginning, it is full of witty banter and puns, and possesses the basic plot devices of other Shakespearian comedies. But with the death of Mercutio in Act III, the action turns to tragedy, and the lovers are consumed by violent conflicts. The conflicts of youth and age, fate and free will, and the inability of the characters romantic ideals to overcome the social forces working against them are what drive the play. Critics have said that the true strength of Romeo and Juliet lies in its ability to describe the dramatic intensity of what it feels like to be young and out of time. 3

5 If I lived in the Middle East (where my family originates) I might produce the play with imagery and ideas that reflect the ongoing issues between Arab and Israeli or Muslim and Christian. If I was producing this play in Great Britain in the 1970 s, I might look at the play in terms of the conflict between the Irish and the British. What about civil war America? What about the days of foreign internment camps in Canada during the first and second world wars? ~Director, Stephen Tobias. QUESTION: Think of events (political, social, moral) happening around the world today. Can you imagine other contexts for Romeo and Juliet that might speak to a very different audience than our own? How would you imagine presenting this script to an audience in order to make sense of the story? CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES In presenting the play, I have chosen as a director to use modern cultural reference points to assist in making the narrative clear to an audience. For example: we have modelled the Capulet ball after the Acadian celebration called Tantamarre; we have placed the initial civil brawl has been conceived as developing naturally out of a street hockey game; we have used modern music and have inserted examples of several forms of dance in the party scene; we have even looked to modern technology such as the blaster that plays music during the street hockey game or an MP3 player that Juliet uses to retreat into music when challenged by her parents. QUESTION 1: After seeing the production: how did these cultural upgrades work for you as an audience? Did they help? Did they confuse the issue? Can you imagine other areas where we may have missed the mark? Were there other opportunities for cultural upgrades to the story that we have missed? QUESTION 2: Certain issues in this kind of conceptualization tend to become rabbithole issues. They can lead us (like Alice In Wonderland) down a rabbit-hole of possibilities that end up distracting us from the point of the play. For example: we deliberately didn t want guns on stage even though it might make sense for a conflict at the level of this one. Can you see how that could possibly send the production in directions that we may not want to deal with? Another modern fact of life is the level of connectivity we all now enjoy. Cell-phones, smart-phones, Facebook, Twitter, Google, You Tube - just to name a few of the many platforms for communication that exist today. Remember: none of these things existed 5

6 when I was in high-school in the 1980s. In Shakespeare s day, communication was obviously much more difficult. People had to meet in person. Messages needed to be sent by hand. Much of the story of Romeo and Juliet hinges on mis-communication, or delayed communication. So in modernizing the design concepts, can you understand why we avoided any and all references to cell-phones, smart phones, text messaging, etc? Imagine how many times in the story that a simple text message may have changed the outcome of everything? ~Director, Stephen Tobias. NEW BRUNSWICK CONTEXT The Saint John Theatre Company has taken the unusual step of translating portions of Romeo and Juliet by adding in scenes from a Victor Hugo French translation. This, combined with a modern design concept, allows the production to comment on the often troubled Anglophone/Francophone relationship that exists in our region of the country. There are many in the community who have cautioned against such an approach saying that it might be too risky or potentially controversial. In my opinion, that is exactly the reason why we should do it this way. Too often when it comes to touchy subjects the only people we hear from are the angry unreasonable voices or the voices of protest. One need only read the online blog responses to many of the day to day news stories that impact our province and you will quickly see that there is a very small yet extremely vocal group of individuals on either side of the language debate. 6

7 I personally believe that the vast majority of people living in New Brunswick are extremely tolerant of other cultures and choose to celebrate the incredible diversity that exists within our communities. It is unfortunate that, the way that media works in our society, we only seem to hear from the most extreme voices. In that sense, the characters in Romeo and Juliet do not represent average people. They represent families that are on two extreme edges of an argument (whatever argument you choose to make the play about) The upside of using Romeo and Juliet in this context is that (while tragic events unfold in the play) there is, at the end, a substantial reconciliation between the Capulets and the Montagues. The two groups come to understand that there has been a terrible price paid by the younger generation. Only by coming together and putting their differences behind them can their community ever be able to move beyond the tragedy that has occurred. ~Director, Stephen Tobias. QUESTION: Can you imagine the possibility of a play like Romeo and Juliet generating a positive dialogue between people of two extremely opposing groups? Or do you imagine that their hostilities would only be heightened as a result of the ensuing dialogue? NEW BRUNSWICK CULTURE New Brunswick is the only constitutionally bilingual province in Canada, with approximately 35% of the population speaking French as their first language. Jacques Cartier, the French explorer, first arrived in the area that now makes up New Brunswick in Approximately 70 years later, French settlers returned to the area to create a colony, which would later become known as Acadia. These Acadian settlers are the ancestors of the Francophone population currently living in the province. Toward the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, many British refugees from the American colonies who wished to remain loyal to the crown fled to New Brunswick, where they became known as the Loyalists. A large portion of today s population are descended from this group. Together, the French and English cultures have been living in New Brunswick for over two centuries, with over 1000 years of history long before they had even settled on this continent. In that time, they have both competed and cooperated on many levels, but it has never been possible for either group to completely resolve the conflicts of the past. 7

8 The Golden Age of the Acadian settlers in the early 18th century was interrupted in 1755 when the British authorities began to enforce the deportation order, stripping the Acadian citizens of their rights and shipping them to unknown locations, ending up in places like Orleans, Louisiana, and surrounding areas. A promise had been given by the British to the deported French that the families would not be divided in exile, but this promise was not kept. The Acadian homes and livelihood were subsequently destroyed, and they were left with nothing to return to when they were allowed to come out of exile in Even then, they were only allowed to return if they agreed to swear an oath of allegiance, and were only allowed to resettle in certain locations. In 1884, the Acadian peoples chose their flag and anthem. Today, this group remains proud of their language, adherence to the Roman Catholic faith family values, and retain a sense of independence and respect for the community. The discrimination against the Francophone community by the English has sowed a sense of discord which exists to some extent even today, while some of the Anglophones still resent the rising presence of the French in the civil service. 8

9 SHAKESPEARE PLAYS IN NON-TRADITIONAL WAYS Though it was written early in Shakespeare s career, Romeo and Juliet has often been billed as the greatest love story ever told. It is certainly one of his most frequently performed pieces, and has become a timeless image of Shakespearian tragedy: a pair of star-crossed lovers, united by passion but doomed to be apart. Throughout the centuries, the popularity of Romeo and Juliet has generated numerous adaptations of the story, spanning various art forms including ballet, film, opera, literature, musical theatre, and the visual arts. The timelessness of the story has allowed it to be recreated through many creative and non-traditional forms. Among them: West Side Story: A stage musical written by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Berstein and Stephen Sondheim. It explores the rivalry and racial tension between two feuding street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. Such Tweet Sorrow: The Royal Shakespeare Company has given the story a modern twist by recreating an improvised version of the classic tale over Twitter. Actors responded in character to each other and real-world events via Tweets, including lines like Jules over and out! by julietcap16. Gnomeo and Juliet (2001): This recently released animated children s film tells the humourous story of two garden gnomes from neighboring gardens. The Capulet and Montague gardens are at war, and Gnomeo and Juliet must overcome many obstacles and lawnmowers in the name of love. Other artists who have produced their own adaptations in other media include: Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein s Me and Juliet; Charles Francois Gounod s opera Roméo et Juliette; Rudolph Nureyev s and Sergei Prokofiev s ballet Romeo and Juliet; painter and poet William Blake s The Dance of Albion; and Elvis Costello s art songs The Juliet Letters. SOURCE MATERIAL Information modified from Andrew Dickson s A Rough Guide to Shakespeare (2009); The Canadian Encyclopedia; Wikipedia; James S. Shapiro s Contested Will (2010); the Immigration Canada website; The Acadian Odyssey 9

10 EDUCATION SPONSORS JAMES VENNER RUSSEL FOUNDATION 10

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