Feb 13, 2016 | Shakespeare - Theatre
Ask anyone who has ever played Lord or Lady Capulet, and especially any Nurse, to name their least favorite scene, and they’ll tell you it’s the Weeping and Wailing scene. (Aside – actors almost always use short-hand when referring to a scene. R&J has the...
Feb 12, 2016 | Shakespeare - Theatre
It amazes me that, of the thirty-odd productions I’ve been a part of and the dozen more I’ve seen, I’m the only director to make use of these lines from Juliet:
O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out...
Feb 10, 2016 | Shakespeare - Short Stories - Theatre
Despite what Baz Luhrmann did in his film, the party in R&J is not a masked ball. It was common practice in Renaissance Italy to show up wearing a mask to a party one was not invited to. Which is exactly what the boys are doing. Mercutio is even delighted to don a...
Feb 8, 2016 | Shakespeare - Theatre
I never enjoy productions of Romeo & Juliet that play the Tragedy from the beginning – probably because I don’t think it is a Tragedy at all (see here). But even if it were, this isn’t Hamlet or Macbeth. There’s no ghost, no three witches. The first half of the...
Feb 7, 2016 | Shakespeare - Theatre
I venture into the realm of the painfully obvious when I say that, since it was first penned somewhere around 1595, Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet has become timeless. As an actor, it’s been my good fortune to perform most of the male roles in the show – Romeo,...
