Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet as a Street Performance at ANW

(Left to Right) Donnla Hughes (Juliet) and Will Bradley (Romeo). – Photo by Daniel Reichert

By May S. Ruiz

Beginning this upcoming Valentine’s Day through May 8, A Noise Within (ANW) will be staging the greatest love story of all time – William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

Directed by Damaso Rodriguez, artistic director of Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland’s longest-running professional theatre company, this “Romeo and Juliet” will be a far departure from how Shakespeare’s work is traditionally presented: as a period piece, with lavish costumes and grand sets. Instead the play will be presented as a street performance, in a graffiti-ed and littered alley with garbage bins scattered about.

The vision for this well-known play came about when Rodriguez visited Havana, Cuba, and met with artists who staged bare-bone productions for a few attendees in humble homes. He relates one memorable evening, “We walked through a courtyard overlooking balconies – it is a beautiful environment but all around you could see peeling plaster from 50 years of decay. We entered a small house, with light bulbs in tomato cans for stage lighting, the actors wearing their own clothes. The audience was made up of 20 people who came that night. And they proceeded to tell their story. It was a Cuban play which, I think, was about their daily struggles for survival. While there was a language barrier, what united the performers with the audience was the art form. It was a truly transformative moment for me.

“Theatre companies without much in the way of money put on plays using found objects for props and scenery, and in very low-tech, low-resource performance spaces. The plays with just the actors themselves having to rely on their skills were powerful and inspirational. In this place where there are few resources, actors and audience link as a community with the compelling need to tell and hear stories joining them as one.

“I wanted to bring this experience to ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – costumes will be clothes that actors own, props are whatever they find in the street, and the setting urban. The play will exist in the telling rather than the trappings.

“It will be an unexpected environment that in no way resembles the characters’ wealth and class. I hope that by stripping the play down to its most basic, it will focus on the language and clarify the intention of the characters,” Rodriguez discloses further.

ANW’s artistic director, Geoff Elliott reveals, “When we approached Damaso about directing for us this season, he responded by saying that he has wanted to do ‘Romeo and Juliet’ because it deals with the most basic of human emotions – love, rashness, hate, fate – and tribalism, which drives just about anything we call news. Humans have passion, conduct war, and kill each other over a tribal conflict the origin of which no one can even remember. And I think that Damaso has found a direct and compelling way to tell this story.”

Rodriguez says, “I hope people who come to watch the play, after a few minutes just try to conceptualize these characters and see them as humans. I hope they see a clearer version of the story and realize the universal essence of ‘Romeo and Juliet.’

“It is a raw and harsh environment, yet we have an optimistic view that their death has brought the conflict between these two families to an end. People will realize this tragedy happened because of two opposing rigid world views – that it took the death of these young characters to end hatred. Romeo and Juliet taught them to look at life differently,” Rodriguez adds.

“It’s arguably daunting to present such a classical material in an unexpected fashion because you could be working with actors who’ve done it before. People who love Shakespeare have certain expectations; also there are scholars who think Shakespeare has to be done a certain way. But in the end all I can do is forget about that. I have to believe that a director has to find an emotional connection and impulsive reaction to it, and share that with his collaborators,” Rodriguez states further.

“It’s quite liberating, actually, to not be restricted by expectations and standards. While ANW has staged ‘Romeo and Juliet’ twice, I didn’t necessarily set out to find a way to make it very different from what they did before. I didn’t burden myself with that concern; I am merely satisfying an urgent impulse. It’s hard enough to just unpack the language of Shakespeare. I simply want to make the storytelling as clear as he would have wanted for his audience,” concludes Rodriguez.

During Shakespeare’s time some plays were presented outdoors. Theatregoers had to use their imagination – there were no backdrops, lighting, or props to speak of. Furthermore, his plays were not intended to be read but spoken aloud; the lack of background meant there was nothing to distract the audience from the actors’ words and movements.

That ANW’s “Romeo and Juliet” would be staged as they were originally performed 400 years ago is the perfect tribute to the Bard’s timeless work.

Director Damaso Rodriguez. – Courtesy Photo

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