By Ana Diaz —
Recently, Miami students, staff, and others gathered in Parrish Auditorium on Miami’s Hamilton campus to view a free production of Romeo and Juliet, a classic Shakespearean tragedy. The performance was put on by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, an ensemble theater that seeks to bring Shakespeare and other classics “to life for all.” The event was sponsored by Miami’s Department of Literatures, Languages, and Writing.
As the lights in the auditorium dimmed right before the show began, an expectant hush fell over the audience who had gathered to experience one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. Though the production was minimal—six actors each played three or four parts, and the scenes were set mostly with a few orange boxes—that did not take away from the emotion and passion evident in the play.
Romeo and Juliet is a classic tale about the romance between two teenagers living in Italy, who come from feuding families. The Montagues and the Capulets cannot overcome their feud to allow the marriage of their children. The tale features Shakespeare’s trademark twists and turns: Romeo gets involved in a street duel between the warring families, which results in a death in each family. Romeo is implicated in the fight and is banished from Verona.
When Juliet’s parents try to use this opportunity to quickly marry their daughter to an older man named Paris, Juliet runs to the friar for help. The friar gives Juliet a sleeping potion that makes it appear as if she were dead. The plan is to allow the pair to rendezvous in the chamber in which Juliet would be awaiting, appearing as if dead but only deeply asleep. Juliet would wake up two days later and the young lovers would be together again.
However, due to some miscommunications with tragic consequences, Romeo approaches Juliet and believes she’s actually dead, then drinks poison, vowing never to live without his love. When Juliet wakes up and sees Romeo dead next to her, she takes her own life out of grief and despair.
The first quarter or so of the play was lighthearted and hilarious, with the actor who played Mercutio eliciting giggles and laughter from the whole audience with his wild posturing. Shakespeare’s power to draw laughter and delight from his audience still holds up over 400 years later—of course, with the help of skilled actors.
But, the deadly consequences of the family feud were thrown into sharp clarity for the rest of the play, the tone turning somber, every character anguishing over one such thing or another. There is often debate about whether Romeo and Juliet actually loved each other—or, was this tragedy all the result of some meaningless young fling? After all, they only knew each other for two days; how could they possibly have known each other well enough to take their lives for the other? Indeed, the actor portraying Romeo convinced me that he was certainly a dramatic 15-year-old youth prone to melancholy and despair, as well as whimsy and romance.
Whatever your stance on whether Romeo and Juliet really “loved” each other, the tragedy of the story lies in the truth that this was a senseless and terrible loss that would have been completely preventable had the families set aside their differences to give young love a chance to repair the fractures in their relationships. Instead, the families chose not to give in, and it resulted in the tragic loss of two young lives.
After the performance was over, the cast took a bow to applause and cheers from the audience. Then, the cast hosted a casual Q&A session, answering questions about their acting experience, stage combat experience, and other things that came to the audience’s minds. When asked how many times they had performed Romeo and Juliet, the cast laughed a little, collectively. “A lot,” they said. “Probably at least 20 times.” It was clear in their performance that they were familiar with the show and passionate about sharing the timeless thrill and excitement in Shakespeare’s plays.