See What's Happening at Our Exciting Second Theatre!

vol. 3 no. 3 January, 2006 “My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love as deep. The more I give to thee The more I have, for both are infinite.” – Romeo & Juliet See what’s happening at our exciting second theatre! page 6-7 Everett Dance Theatre Home Movies January 12-15 by William Shakespeare February 4 A.R.T./MXAT Institute directed by Gadi Roll – March 16 Melancholy Play by Sarah Ruhl directed by Scott Zigler February 10-18 Arabian Night by Roland Schimmelpfennig directed by Marcus Stern VE! March 30 – April 1 AYS. SUBSCRIBE NOW & SA at Zero Church Street Performance Space 7.8300 CHOOSEamrep.org ANY 3 OR 617.54 MORE PL Will the Real Will Shakespeare PLEASE STAND UP?by Christopher R. Hildebrand ince the dawn of cinema has nothing more than a glimpse through The film was nominated for four Academy torch flickering. Prying his way into the Romeo and Juliet has the lens of film. Hollywood has cranked Awards, including Best Picture and Best crypt, he meets Paris, who forces him into remained a directors’, actors’, out over four hundred films based on Actress for Norma Shearer for Juliet, and mortal combat. Arriving at the side of and audience favorite. Shakespeare’s plays, not counting early Leslie Howard as an eloquent Romeo. Juliet, he delivers his lines with a somber Unfortunately, the mainstream films that have long since crumbled to Because of their virtuosity with the poetry, tone; touching his lips to her mouth, he American stage history of the star-crossed dust. In the 1990s alone fifty-five films audiences and critics easi- Slovers has not been as fruitful. New York were churned out. How did the bard ly forgot that they were fif- and Boston have seen few major produc- seduce Hollywood? To begin, Shake- teen years too old for their tions of the work in a major theatre over speare is the world’s most famous play- parts. Beginning as a the past several decades. Boston’s wright, and his plays are not under copy- young inamorata, Shearer Commonwealth Shakespeare Company right law, which appeals to bottom-line grows into a tragic woman produced the play in 1987 as part of its moguls. In contrast, directors and actors undone by fate and annual Shakespeare on the Common turn to Shakespeare for his stories. Howard’s English tongue series directed by Steven Maler; the same Although students go through high school luxuriates in Romeo’s text. year Circle in the Square Theatre present- with their teachers drilling them about Filled out by a superb cast, ed the play under the direction of Shakespeare’s language, in the movies, the film also includes a Theodore Mann with cuts and addi- rapier-sharp Basil in New York. Ten tions, the language Rathbone as Tybalt (a years later, often disappears like jaunt that earned him a Broad- way ozone, leaving only a Supporting Actor Oscar dropped the cur- bare-bones plot. But nod); his Tybalt explodes tain on its last Shakespeare’s plots with poison-tipped barbs telling of the tale, never fail to entertain. and a blade to match. directed by Understandably John Barrymore, one of our Estelle Parsons. Hollywood has not great Shakespeare actors, In 1999 Joe kept its hands off plays Mercutio, strutting Calarco’s heavily Romeo and Juliet, energetically and dying adapted telling, Shakespeare’s eter- gracefully in his only com- Shakespeare’s nal play about love- plete talkie of R&J, featuring sick youth. Over the Shakespeare. The film’s only four men past century direc- physical world differs great- playing all the tors have grappled ly from the movies that had parts (including with the challenge of come before; instead of Sean Dugan who turning painted canvases and just appeared as Shakespeare’s poet- wooden props, Verona is a Andrei in A.R.T.’s ic text into cinema- living, breathing entity. The Three Sisters), graphic rhetoric. film opens in the town square full of ven- takes his life. Cukor allowed much of the ran for a record One should not fret dors and their wares; Cukor said he had dialogue to remain intact with only some 385 off- over the more wanted to “get the garlic and deletions and no additions, and he has Broadway per- bizarre adaptations, Mediterranean” onto the screen. Even successfully captured the visual potential formances. And this past fall, Boston’s all is fair in art and business. though the visuals dazzle, Cukor’s legacy of film without mangling Shakespeare’s New Repertory Theatre hristened it’s new Shakespeare, after all, stole the story, and was giving the text its due; though cut, as text. The film continues to enchant visual- theatre with a well-recieved production of even some lines, from previous sources - every film adaptation must be, the text that ly and verbally; Cukor’s cinematic version the play. most obviously Luigi da Porto’s 1530 work made it to the screen is almost entirely created the template for all important Because of this dearth of professional entitled Historia novellamente ritrovata di Shakespeare’s, something one cannot say adaptations to come. productions, most people know due nobili amanti and Arthur Brooke’s The of the other major films of the work. In the Some thirty years later, Franco Shakespeare’s most famous love story Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet last scene Cukor’s visual harmonization Zeffirelli’s version would have the Oscar only through screen adaptations. Although (1562). George Cukor’s 1936 version, comes to full bloom; the director has an world abuzz again. Zeffirelli’s 1968 film the public feels it knows the play, in fact it featuring bravura performances, comes to anguished Romeo storm the Capulet mon- came on the heels of his successful stage us from the Golden Age of the studio era. ument in the black of night with only his 2 ARTicles production. In both, Zeffirelli wanted to create an adaptation that would be acces- rotting corpse of Tybalt, the director cre- of his wife’s death, Romeo leaps into his sible to modern audiences. To do so, he ates a macabre sorrow. Bursting into this sand-covered car, leaving nothing but a altered the text significantly, visual rhetoric gloom, Romeo finds his Juliet laid out in storm of sand in his wake. Blazing through took the place of Shakespeare’s words. mortal finery. Paris has been cut from the the streets of Verona Beach with police Zeffirelli gambled by casting two unknown scene to focus on Romeo and the coma- cars swarming behind him, Romeo aban- teenagers, 16-year-old Olivia Hussey and tose Juliet. Lamenting (briefly), he ingests dons his vehicle, runs on foot, weapon in 17-year-old Leonard poison and collapses. hand, to the steps of the sepulcher. With Whiting. Inexperience Waking, Juliet sees her police headlights trailing him, he opens the hampered both husband on the floor door to the vault and barricades himself actors, but since both Most people and sheds her earthly inside. From the outside, the tomb looks were ravishingly beau- coils post haste. Cutting like a neo-gothic church, inside it becomes tiful and full of youthful know most of the text, Zeffirelli a techno dance floor with neon lights; the exuberance, audi- creates what he called a only tomb we see is Juliet’s surrounded by ences forgave their “solemn . dumb show”: an ocean of bright candles. Placing him- less than skilled per- Shakespeare’s two bodies carried self next to Juliet, Romeo lays down his formances. The through a desolate town gun, whispers goodbye and takes poison. value of this film is not famous love square that slowly floods But unlike every other major film, this the acting or the script with mourners. Though Romeo’s performance has not ended. but rather the atmos- the text has undergone Taking a page from several 18th-century phere Zeffirelli creat- story only an extreme makeover, productions, Luhrmann gives his lovers ed. Filmed against the the film remains a one last gaze into each other’s eyes. As backdrop of an Italy in through screen remarkable gem, beauti- Romeo falls, Juliet wakes; Romeo dies the bloom of spring, in fully filmed and several cities of masterfully Tuscany, Umbria, and adaptations. directed. It Lazio, Zeffirelli remains the worked his love of history and architecture most popular film version of into the film. Capulet’s home was built by Romeo and Juliet. Pope Pius II in 1460, Friar Lawrence’s Finally, we arrive at the most church is the church of San Pietro, a radical and current revision: Baz national monument, and all the scenes of Lurhmann’s 1996 film William riots and duels are filmed in Gubbio, one of Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, a the great medieval cities of Italy. portrait for the MTV generation Zeffirelli’s retelling appealed to a with a rock soundtrack and jump- counter-culture in the throws of a sexual stop cinematography. Lurhmann revolution. This auteur director’s vision sets his romance in a fictional comes through loud and clear in the death Verona Beach, Florida, a gang- scene. Throughout his two-and-one-half infested beach metropolis run- hour banquet for the eye, the story unfolds down from years of strife. His in images. Romeo’s return to Verona to lie characters sport firearms and with his love’s dead body erupts in a cine- drugs, creating a hyper violent matographic montage that carries the and frenzied sexual environment. audience through This entropy to the end, drives a plethora of textual quickly and Juliet, taking his gun, ends her breathless.

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