ROMEO & JULIUS • Pit & Balcony’s Bold Re-Invention of Shakespeare’s Poetic & Powerful Literary Classic

Of all the love stories spanning from antiquity through the ages, William Shakespeare’s tragic tale of Romeo & Juliet, the two young star-crossed lovers entangled between a deeply rooted and embedded hatred of their feuding families, is without doubt one of the most enduring, passionate, and poetically rendered pieces of writing permeating the convoluted canon of romantic literature.

Written by Shakespeare early in his career it stands today as one of the most popular plays written during his lifetime, and along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed. Written between 1591 and 1595, Shakespeare’s use of poetic dramatic structure, switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension and establishing sub-plots to embellish the story, articulates the framework for his literary skill, which is one of many reasons why 428-years later these ill-fated and unforgettable lovers have endured as romantic archetypes  through such memorable updated adaptations as Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film, Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film, and most recently, Carlo Calei’s 2013 treatment.

Now Pit & Balcony Community Theatre will present their own modern interpretation and regional premier of this theatrical masterpiece in a series of performances set for January 12-14 & 19-21^st, directed by Chad William Baker, which boldly recasts this timeless classic into the tale of Romeo & Julius, exploring the notion that love indeed does have no boundaries when two hearts become deeply intertwined.

“We were looking at presenting something from Shakespeare in our current season and were surprised to discover Pit & Balcony hadn’t staged any Shakespeare since they did The Scottish Play back in the 1960s,” explains Baker. “We were looking for a different adaptation that would give us room for some creative elasticity, and found this 2008 adaptation from David Hundsness, which added and edited certain elements, but also allowed the director to add back whatever he edited, or remove parts he added.”

According to Chad, this new adaptation uses the same iambic pentameter early modern English that Romeo & Juliet was written in, which itself was revolutionary. As an aside, the early modern English language was less than 100 years old in 1590 when Shakespeare was writing. No dictionaries had yet been written and most documents were still written in Latin. Shakespeare contributed 1,700 words to the English language because he was the first author to write them down.

“My favorite adaptation of Romeo & Juliet was the Baz Luhrmann film with Lenoardo DiCaprio & Claire Danes, which is what inspired my ideas for this production,” he continues. “I watched that film in Freshman English class after reading Romeo & Juliet and because it was so modern it made the play far more accessible, so I wanted to find a different way to modernize it here at Pit.” 

“Initially, I thought of gender bending some of the roles throughout the cast and opening it to whomever wanted to audition for whatever role they wanted to play; but the more I thought about it -  because of the family feud dividing their two families, which was the reason they couldn’t be together, I started to look at the notion of ‘Family’ from a societal context  - how this is not the expectation these people have for us.”

Given how much richness of Shakespeare’s language in Romeo & Juliet is derived from the poetic delineation between masculine and feminine traits of vision, expectation, courage, and aspiration, does Baker find it challenging to render these innate sexual differences between two male characters, given that Juliet expresses certain sentiments and feelings with her words that guys would rarely express, and vice versa?

“I did run into that somewhat with a couple actors,” Chad admits, “but even in the original version Juliet is the one who sort of makes all the plans. She’s the one who wants to get married because their two families hate each other and knows they are unable to court one another, so in that sense she’s the one who takes charge and assumes that unexpected masculine role. But yeah - that is the interesting thing we’re running into - figuring out the context.”

“My idea was to cast two people of the same gender as Romeo & Juliet and I wasn’t set on whether those two would be male or female,” reflects Chad. “We had a lot of people auditioning and everyone was excited to read for different roles. We had quite a few men read for the part of the nurse and quite a few women reading for the role of Romeo. Because of the deep emotions articulated so clearly coming out of these young characters, I told the actors to focus on what lines they are saying right now in the moment and what they mean, and approach it from their own context, so it doesn’t come off as too flowery or alliterative.”

With a cast consisting of Felix Meisel in the role of Romeo, Lliam Hamilton-Kraft as Julius, Erica Close as Mercutio, Matthew Howe as Benvolio, Steven Axtell as Tybalt, Hannah Duford as Nurse & Prince, William Campbell as Friar Laurence, Bre Sklar as Capulet, Anna Beardsley as Montague, and ancillary roles going to Sofia Morrone, Jona Lawrence, and Quinn Nichols, Chad says many of the actors comprising the cast are making their debut appearances at Pit & Balcony.

“Felix and Lliam have never appeared at Pit before, so this will mark their debut,” notes Chad. “Felix has performed at Bay City Players and Lliam has been in quite a few things at Midland Center. “One of the things that scared me about this production is that it’s one of the few Shakespeare plays that requires casting both lead roles with pretty young actors, and both of them have a really good understanding of their characters. Lliam is about to turn 18 so the world is new to him and both of them have an excitement and understanding about what they’re saying because the world is still new to them.”

“I told every male actor reading for a traditional female character not to feminize it but to play the role the way they felt it should be played naturally,” Chad explains. “Lliam brought a sensitive part of himself into that role I had not seen before and did it very easily. Even though that’s not typically how he is, he was able to transform himself very quickly, and the same is true with Felix. Romeo is so unsure of himself most of the time, but has that gung-ho spirit of pushing forward with life even though he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, and Felix possesses that confidence about himself and also understood the language very easily.”

Lastly, is Chad worried about any negative repercussions that may ensue from making such a bold transitioning of Juliet’s gender? 

“I’m not usually worried about that and hope that isn’t the case,” he confesses. “I think Shakespeare  was such a gifted writer that his plays are something that can be performed in so many different ways it’s one of the primary reasons they’re so popular.” 

“Their content is so relevant you can place them in any time period and the characters can assume any time frame within the core of the narrative that keeps them relevant, so regardless of whether we change a few pronouns throughout the script, all the beauty and power of the story is all still there.”

Pit & Balcony’s regional premier of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet will run from January 12-14 & 19-21. Showtimes are 7:30 pm with 3:00 pm Sunday matinees. Tickets are only $20.00 and can be purchased by calling 999.754.6587 or visiting PitandBalconyTheatre.com