Finding The Essence of
Adam Adolfo on Directing Shakespeare’s Classic Play
By the time the
curtain rises on opening night, September 13th at the Rose Marine
Theater, a director has already spent months – maybe even years – building the
production. He must carefully study the script, audition the actors, and work
with the creative team to design the set, costumes, sound, and lights – all
before ever stepping foot into a rehaearsal room. Director Adam Adolfo has been
spending a lot of time with Shakespeare in recent years having directed
productions of A
Midsummer Nights Dream and Much Ado About
Nothing for OnStage In Bedford and Henry V for Stolen Shakespeare
Guild. Late last week, Adam took time
out of his busy schedule to talk about his thoughts on the play, and the
process of creating this production of Romeo & Juliet.
Question:
When did you first read Romeo & Juliet?
Adam
Adolfo: Oh it
seems like centuries ago! I actually came to Shakespeare early. I was in 5th
grade and happened upon a “Stories of Shakespeare” book and really enjoyed it.
The actual formal text came much later. I think I was in 9th grade
and was ‘forced’ to read it for my English class. I do remember I didn’t like
it. I’m being honest. I in fact hated it! I was bored out of my mind reading
it. I then got to see the Zeferelli film and still was ‘unimpressed’. It wasn’t
until Baz Lurhman’s modern take with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Daines did I
suddenly get it. “OH! THIS IS A STORY ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE ME!” That was a big revelation
for me. Several years late, I got to study at the Texas Shakespeare Festival
and fell in love so deeply with Shakespeare. The impact on me as a teen then
has had career length ramifications. Now years later, I am forced to remember
that for most of us, we already know who Romeo & Juliet are long before we
ever read the play or see an adaptation. These two characters are now icons of
“true love”.
Q:
How is the play different from that popular idea we all have of the “true love”
Romeo & Juliet?
AA: In Shakespeare’s plays, the
prologue, often delivered by the chorus, but in ours delivered by our amazing
singer Michael Alonzo, describes the popular idea of the plays protagonist, but
the play itself shows it’s truth about that character. We learn that these 2
feuding families will help push our ‘star-crossed lovers’ to take their own
lives! That’s a lot of information to handle in the first 45 seconds of a play.
Talk about having a ‘killer tweet’. In 140 characters we could pretty much sum
up Romeo and Juliet.
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A pair of star-crossed lovers
Photo by Mark Mayr |
Q: What makes your Romeo & Juliet different than the
ones we’ve seen in the past?
AA: To be honest – JULIA ROBERTS. (Laughs)
No seriously. I started thinking about this story and all I could think was ‘Why
does everyone always make the show ‘sooo serious?!’ Sure there’s murder, and
drugs, and suicide, but that is not where the show starts! In the beginning - there’s
fun, love, and laughs - If you stop and think about it – until the moment Romeo
leave’s Juliet because of his banishment – it’s a romantic comedy! Boy meets
girl. Boy falls for girl. So when the actors and I are working with the script,
especially the first half of the show, I keep screaming at them “STOP DOING
SHAKESPEARE! THIS IS A JULIA ROBERTS MOVIE!” In the first half of the show I
feel we have more fun and joy, laughter and love, than traditional staging’s of
Romeo and Juliet. This makes it more
tragic when the bad stuff happens.
That coupled with the ethnic feud of Cubans and Americans, makes our show
quite different. Ethnically speaking we simply have to create two culturally polar
opposite families to achieve the story. So, in staging Romeo’s family as part
of the wealthy and frequently mob associated sect of 1958 Havana Cuba. Pairing
that with Juliet’s family, rich Americans who like many of the time included
Sinatra, Kennedy, Hemingway, and Errol Flynn, saw Havana as a tropical
playground of the Caribbean full of sun, sand, and sin. These two things put
together create a chemical reaction that is as volatile as Shakespeare’s young
lovers.
At the end of the day, we're doing best as actor's, directors, and designers to 'defy the stars' and believe in love. The show's power lies in its willingness to fight the odds for love. So we're doing the same!
Q: You are working on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Where do you start when creating
your own interpretation of such a well-known piece?
AA: Oh my… that’s hard to say. It’s
different every time. Shakespeare can be doubly hard and intimidating. The
first Shakespeare I ever directed was Hamlet and I remember thinking, “The
producer must be nuts to trust ME with Shakespeare!” But it ended up being an
extremely exciting experience. The terrors wear off, but it never really goes
away. In recent years, I’ve managed to do A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry V so Shakespeare is more
like an old friend that every few years I re-meet to “catch up” with. There’s a
familiarity now, so I think that helps deal with much of the butterflies.
Honestly, each project I direct, Shakespeare or otherwise, is conceived by
other art. It’s sometimes a painting, sometimes a film, sometimes a photo. With
Romeo and Juliet, it was a song. I am not a fan of “concept for concept’s
sake” when it comes to Shakespeare. That’s how you get shows like “Hamlet in
Hawaii”. But when the concept can illuminate the story, rather than be a gaudy
bauble you hand around its neck - you have a really exciting project on your
hands. For Romeo and Juliet, I kept trying to figure out what the
feuding cultures would be and while driving one day, I was listening to music
from singer and actress Linda Eder when a song about what it was like in Havana
in the 1950’s came on my CD player. I immediately was intrigued. I’ve always
had a great interest with Cuba. In fact, my first show at Artes, Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof, was inspired by Cuban culture. Knowing the country’s
history, it was interesting to see how the events of late 1958, early 1959
mirrored the events of Shakespeare’s world (i.e. the civil unrest, the power
struggle of warring factions). Seeing Romeo and Juliet set in that
world wasn’t a hard leap…
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Artes de la Rosa Artistic Director
Adam Adolfo |
Q: How do you think about the characters of Romeo & Juliet as your
audition actors for the roles?
AA: Auditions are an exciting time. “YOU NEVER KNOW.”
Sometimes they are full of familiar faces, and sometimes they are bright-eyed
newbies looking to take the stage. This cast is a great mixture of both. Several
of them are “veterans” of Artes de la Rosa, some which most recently have been
seen in our production of In The Heights. No less than five of those
musical actors are returning to Romeo and Juliet and all of them are
making their Shakespeare debut. For some people, the cast may seem surprisingly
young - and it’s true, but the energy of a younger cast lends itself to the
urgency and impulsiveness of these characters. Shakespeare was telling a very
young story… it’s almost comical now to go back and see the 1936 film with
Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer. They are “long in the tooth” and short in the
power, which is exactly what I was looking for in a young cast: POWER. For
example, Romeo… He makes a dramatic transformation; he changes from a boy who’s
in love with the idea of love – namely in the infatuation of Rosaline, to an
extraordinary young man, after his meeting with Juliet at the masquerade ball.
He finds love with her and his language changes. We see his vivid imagination
in the poetry. Then when he faces Tybalt, we his capacity for violence, rage,
and destruction. We are all capable of that kind of emotional range – but as an
audience that’s a lot to receive in 2 hours.
The same can be said of Juliet who at times is a school girl but mere
moments later a strong woman.
Q: As you work with your scenic, costume, sound and lighting team to
create this production what have you done to make “Verona” come alive for us?
AA: Well this production doesn’t take place in Verona.
For us it’s Havana in 1958. This is an exciting time in Cuba’s history and made
for an appropriate substitution for Elizabethan Verona. It’s exciting, exotic, and tempting – which
is pretty much how Shakespeare saw Verona. It was the ‘big city’ in a foreign
land. I imagine it’s the way some people still think of Paris or Venice. Our
goal was to turn the Rose Marine Theatre into a living nightclub casino from
Havana’s heyday. So we treat the entire space as “The Rose Club” complete with
a Master of Ceremonies, showgirls, and gambling! This means it provided the
staging a lot of opportunity to make it very theatrical. We have a grand red
curtain, a set of beautiful show girls, a choreographer, a mob boss who’s
running the casino. The idea was to make
the audience feel like they are in a place where they could see these things
happening in the world around them. We have dance sequences that are very
physical and beautiful but surprisingly support the text very fluidly – almost
as if Shakespeare had always intended for us to ‘dance out the answer’ (one of
my favorite quotes from Much Ado About
Nothing). That ability to embrace the theatrical has made it possible to
bring new looks, interpretations, and sounds to the show! We’re very excited.
Q: You mentioned new sounds? Can you be more specific?
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Balthasar the Balladeer
Played by Michael Diego Alonzo |
AA: Well, I don’t want to say what we’re doing is a
musicalization of Romeo and Juliet, but there is A LOT of music in the show.
Shakespeare pulled music from the streets, from court dancing, from liturgical
services. He was extremely aware of the world outside and wanted to bring it in
– so in many ways, we’ve made the choice to operate under the same
circumstances. We have a brilliant young actor, Michael Alonzo, who was one of
the stars of In the Heights, playing the Emcee in this production. He sings
about 6 songs in the production and they range in style from pop to opera to liturgical
and are in 5 languages! He sings in Latin, English, French, Spanish, and
Italian! Some of the music will be very familiar and some will be very
traditional – but all of it will surprise you in how well it fits in the story!
Q: Do you want to share any song choices with us?
AA: Let’s just say that you’ll hear J-Lo, Michael Buble,
Marc Anthony, Pavarotti, Josh Groban and even Ricky Martin! Be prepared to
dance!
Q: What advice would you give someone who’s seeing Shakespeare performed
in the theatre for the first time?
AA:
Shakespeare is one of the greatest – IF NOT THE GREATEST – storyteller of all
time! This is something you just have to go and ‘receive’ like a present. The
actors on stage are extremely talented and they will make sure you ‘understand’
this poetry. It is meant to be beautiful, poetic and theatrical. There is
something to be expected for everyone! There’s dancing, singing, romance,
violence, sadness, joy… basically it’s a Stephen Speilberg film! Sometimes there is an expection when it comes
to Shakespear that you have to really ‘work’ to understand everything. We
promise you, just understand the emotions and the words become very easy to
understand! Just be present and ‘accept’ all the beautiful things coming at you
on a very personal human level.
Shakespeare’s audiences hadn’t read the script in advance – they just
experienced it. So I encourage you to come out to the Rose Marine Theatre and
experience Shakespeare.
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| Romeo & Juliet - Photo by Mark Mayr |
