I love theatre. The talent, artistry, passion, and the spectacle enthrall me. But moments like this one from Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s 2008 Shakes-to-go production of Romeo and Juliet blow my mind and keep me coming back. This image of mine could step right out of a Renaissance painting (I love it for that alone) and in this moment Nika Ezell Pappas as Tybalt has made me re-consider Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet is a play nearly everyone knows and understands. It is performed frequently because of this, and because it is a reliable seat-filler for any theatre even though many people are bored with it. I certainly was, until I saw this image, and really thought about what I was seeing while I gazed at it for hours. Seriously. Hours.
Most productions of Romeo and Juliet that I have seen approach the play from what I will call the adult viewpoint: family feuds, injustice, loss, grief and death. The last time SSC performed this play the set reflected this by being grey, imposing, and screaming “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! BADLY! BE SAD NOW!” I hated it. By the end, I WANTED both Romeo and Juliet to just die already so I could go home. Director Mike Ryan’s approach in this production appealed to me much more. This Romeo and Juliet is all about lust.
Lust for honor. Lust for blood. Lust for sex. Lust for life that immortal teenagers have. Here’s some STG:RJ lust, wrapped up in Catholic school uniforms, acted with both talent and the smokin’ unconscious energy of youth by Christine Behrens and Aeon Brady:
Lust is what Romeo and Juliet is about. They’re teenagers. The parents hardly enter in to it, and their slightly older and wiser friends cannot stop them. Seen this way, the play is the archetype for every teen drama on T.V.: just substitute some banal conflict for the fighting, and substance abuse or sad music and emo kids for the death scenes, and you have an entire season of the O.C.. Everything else falls in to place because the lust remains.
The image at the top of this post (of which I picked up a 20×23″ canvas print today) conveys Tybalt’s lust for blood. Tybalt will kill Romeo at the dance, and nothing can stop her. But she is stopped, easily, by Mercutio, and is completely surprised.
Romeo is in the background, on the right. On the left is Benvolio, Romeo’s tusty companion played by Shashona Brooks. Tybalt has just been re-directed by Mercutio (off frame to the right, pulling her arm) so that Romeo can escape. And Tybalt is in shock.
The kind of shock that the young have when their purpose is thwarted, enraging them. The rage must be re-directed, so Tybalt kills Mercutio in a later scene. Mercutio’s death sets up all of the following conflict (or deaths, if you prefer) in the rest of the play, and it all starts with this image.
The eyes. The face. The breaking of focus on killing Romeo shines through.
And now you know how we go from a play about teenage lust to limp productions dripping in woe. Even engineers like me (or especially?) over think it and read 700 words into a single, fuzzy, image and then leave out the lust while exploring these other ideas.