Romeo & Juliet

June 04, 2010

Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
Performances on October 29 & 30 and November 4, 5, & 6 at 7:30pm.

Director: Associate Professor Stepan Simek
Scene & Costume Designer: Tim Stapleton
Lighting Designer: Senior Emily Mahaffy

In less then four days of real time and about three hours of stage time, two young people manage to fall in love on first sight, sleep with each other, cause a murderous mayhem among their friends and relatives, run away from home, hastily marry in a questionable ceremony, consume drugs supplied by a shady religious guru, break their parents hearts, and ultimately do away with themselves. 

Sounds like a Quentin Tarantino 2010 production but in fact it is Shakespeare.  The kids in the play are told all the time to do this and not do that, to behave, to perform, to abstain, to go there, but not go here, to listen to their parents, to fulfill expectations, to simply be well-adjusted, well-functioning, well-behaved, well-dressed upper middle class young people who make their folks oh-so proud of them.  But of course the kids have other ideas, and where the youth’ idealism and joy of life meet the adults’ pragmatism and lazy stagnation, there starts the tragedy.  Sounds like American suburbia in 2010, but in fact it is Shakespeare.

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