INTERVIEW: ‘Juliet + Romeo’ explores power of perspective
Photo: Trace Pope and Alyssa May Gold star in Juliet + Romeo. Photo courtesy of Carol Julien / Provided by Vivacity NY with permission.
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a favorite for high school curricula. After all, the tragic play is a nice entry point to the Bard’s poetry. With a plot featuring two sparring families and a love that endures despite difficult odds, the show is arguably one of the most famous pieces of writing every produced for the stage.
Pocket Universe, under the direction of Alyssa May Gold, has breathed new creative life into several productions over its relatively short time in New York City. The company previously tackled Julius Caesar and now is looking toward the Capulets and Montagues. Their rendition, however, is completely reimagined and focuses the text around the journey of a young teenage girl.
Juliet + Romeo is currently playing through Feb. 2 at the Access Theater in New York City. Gold directs the production and also stars as Juliet.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Gold about the new show based on an old text. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What inspired you and the company to reinterpret Romeo and Juliet into Juliet + Romeo?
It was a natural next step after the success of our Julius Caesar, set in an all-girls high school. The success of that production made it clear that we want to use the classics as a portal to exploring the issues [of] our times — not the period in which they were written.
The way we think of Julius Caesar as Shakespeare’s most macho, masculine play, we think of Romeo and Juliet as the most romantic (and not just of his plays, but of all the plays, ever). As I reread it over the summer, I wondered what a teenage girl today would think about it, and, soon after, I envisioned the play taking over her bedroom as she considers the text. And just the text — no young, swooning Leonardo DiCaprio or Francis Lai’s romantic score in her mind.
Would she have any patience or attraction for the moody, depressed Romeo that Shakespeare describes in Act I? Having her Instagram feed filled with odes to celebrities who have overdosed following heartbreak, would she find it courageous that Juliet is willing to take a mystery potion from the Friar in the hopes that when she wakes up, she’ll be with Romeo?
Over the course of several readings and a workshop, we discovered that by filtering this play through young, modern eyes, and using the actual text, a whole new version of Shakespeare’s most famous play unveiled itself.
What do you feel the production says about the world, in particular modern teenage girls, in 2019?
During our first week of rehearsal I ordered a used school edition of Romeo and Juliet from Amazon to see how the play is taught. When I opened it, there were all of these handwritten notes inside — I had wound up with an actual teenage girl’s copy.
She was deeply skeptical of both Romeo and Juliet, and wrote a whole rant in the back of the book about how shallow the ‘love’ is in this play. Teenage girls are so much smarter and much more courageous than we as a culture give them credit, in part because we’ve decided that Juliet, who has zero emotional resilience, is our quintessential brave-hearted teenage girl. This production gives voice to young women’s actual intelligence and courage. It also asks us to reconsider whether being asked to sacrifice everything for love is romantic, or an indication there are other, less admirable forces at work.
Have you always been a fan of William Shakespeare’s plays?
I’ve always had an appreciation for Shakespeare’s epic stories and glorious use of language. But, it wasn’t until graduate school, when I was cast in his male roles — and allowed to use his words to tap into human ambition, the pressure to not disappoint the people around you, existential loneliness and unromantic fury — that I was hooked. I started Pocket Universe to do Julius Caesar just a few months later.
How do you feel the Bard does when writing the role of Juliet?
I don’t think he was trying to write Juliet as a brave, courageous romantic heroine, or as a spirit guide for all heartbroken young women, as she’s so often described. There’s a very clear difference in how we meet Romeo (out in the world, with his friends, complaining that Rosaline won’t have sex with him) and how we meet Juliet: at home, with no friends her age, being told its time to get married.
Of course she’s overwhelmed with desire for the freedom and excitement Romeo represents. He’s a way out for Juliet — an adventure, a rebellion! It’s also quite radical, the language Shakespeare gives her to describe sexual yearning. We’re pretty antsy today about depicting young women and desire, and, in the late 16th century, he wrote her a whole speech. So, when I assess her as an impatient, vulnerable 13-year-old who falls for a guy whose mouth is writing checks his heart can’t cash, with nobody in her life to help her see reason, I think Shakespeare wrote a rather honest, interesting human — but, hardly the one a young woman would aspire to be, and definitely not one she would look to for advice about love.
How has the journey to success been for Pocket Universe?
It has been exciting and terrifying taking plays that people know and have such strong opinions about, like Romeo and Juliet or Julius Caesar, and opening them up to examine other possibilities. Overwhelmingly, audiences are enjoying the experience.
So many people have come up to me after our productions to tell me how it has caused them to reconsider what they had always thought about the play. The most unexpected but thrilling byproduct of our success has been all the young women who have reached out to me because they want to assume more agency in their careers and out in the world. Meeting and working with the next group of women who are going to change the industry — as in the case of my incredible associate directors on Juliet + Romeo: Jess Dukatt and Amanda Cook — has been the absolute best.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Juliet + Romeo plays through Feb. 2 at the Access Theater in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
