ROMEO & JULIET, REINVENTED JUST AS WE SHOULD EXPECT By Byron Woods hy do artists and audiences return — again and again — trying to make something that is neither a concert nor a play — some- to plays now more than four centuries old? The question thing different than either of them.” Romeo and Juliet is Llewellyn’s sec- is particularly pertinent for Romeo and Juliet. Scholar Jill ond such endeavor with the North Carolina Symphony; his first proj- WLevenson notes that it has inspired both the largest and ect in the same vein of play-and-concert hybrid was the immensely most diverse collection of adaptations of any of William Shakespeare’s successful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2015, also con- works. The famous tale of “star-cross’d lovers” has been transformed into ceived with Forsman. more than 20 operas, 10 ballets, 23 films, innumerable theatrical adap- So, how does one merge two fundamentally different art forms, simul- tations including a legendary Broadway musical — and the new work taneously, on the same stage? you’re about to experience tonight. “The cheeky answer is, ‘carefully,’” Forsman notes. “There are times when It is entirely fitting that Grant Llewellyn, Music Director of the North the music is telling the story, and times where the language is taking Carolina Symphony, and Carl Forsman, a faculty member, stage direc- the show; moment by moment, you’re choosing which takes the lead. tor, and former Dean of Drama at the Grant and I get into a really fun dia- University of North Carolina School logue about how that balance works: of the Arts, have created a fusion of where the orchestra comes forward genres in this musical and theatrical and where the language needs to be retelling. Shakespeare’s text itself was supported, trying to figure out where a groundbreaking synthesis, one of we need to be for whatever’s happen- the first works to prove that romance ing in the storytelling.” was a subject appropriate for trage- PROLOGUE dy. It’s also easy to forget the degree That will be evident from the first mo- to which the script integrated trag- Two households, both alike in dignity, ments of their creation, in which the edy with comedy. Researchers have In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, music of Prokofiev supplants the text identified at least 175 jokes scattered surrounding Romeo and Juliet’s open- through the text, reinforcing the con- From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, ing brawl. “We’ll do all the storytelling clusion that, until its third act, Romeo Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. Shakespeare does,” Forsman says, “but and Juliet is primarily a romantic com- From forth the fatal loins of these two foes we’ll do it visually and musically.” edy. “Like any romance, it has to start A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; Technical challenges are an inevitable as a comedy,” Forsman notes. “The part of such a collaboration. A gifted classic line is that Mercutio’s the star Whose misadventured piteous overthrows sound designer is crucial to the effort, of a comedy, and then he dies. Shake- Do with their death bury their parents’ strife. to balance the actors’ voices with their speare had to kill him off because he The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, musical collaborators. Then comes was taking over the play and making the prospect of playing scenes on a it too much fun.” And the continuance of their parents’ rage, stage 80 feet wide — but only 12 feet The Symphony’s production of Romeo Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove, deep. “Wait until we’ve got 12 people and Juliet is also a fusion of genres, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; sword fighting on that strip, within a few feet of priceless instruments,” marrying words from the end of the The which if you with patient ears attend, 1500s with music composed during Forsman chuckles. “It’s going to be the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. incredible!” this is no departure from the artistic As a director, Forsman returns to process Shakespeare employed while the theme of youth as he considers writing Romeo and Juliet — lest we Shakespeare’s text. “In so many ways, forget, the play is largely a dramati- Romeo and Juliet is about the follies zation of Arthur Brooke’s earlier epic and dangers and risks and excitement poem, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, and the source materials of being a young person,” he says. Another aspect of our contemporary for that work extend from the partially autobiographical writings of Ital- lives, the never-ceasing pressure of time, is also reflected in this ancient ian soldier Luigi da Porto and poet Masuccio Salernitano, back to Dante, text. In Shakespeare’s script, Romeo and Juliet meet, fall in love, and Boccaccio’s The Decameron, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. marry within 24 hours. Time pushes them, as disastrous events overtake In each of those texts, an artist has looked back at a work that came and outstrip their relationship. Within four days, both are dead, victims before, seeking something new — a new insight, a new interpretation of the violent immaturity in an immature culture. — in something old. For Llewellyn and Forsman, it is the prospect of a Once again, we watch as old hatreds take their greatest toll on the compelling new genre in performance that drives them on. young — a difficult lesson, and one that is sure to be repeated and “Grant often says that we’re creating a new art form,” Forsman notes. retold through art in ever-evolving ways over the centuries that follow. “And I do think there’s truth to that, as grandiose as it may sound. We’re .