A bowdlerization of the Bard?

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life…

With these lines of the prologue moaned by the chorus, William Shakespeare unfolds the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet. Once again the young lovers who belong to feuding families of Verona enact their tearful, timeless tale, this time in a Bankard TicketCharge production at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza in Makati. Yet once again the Capulets and the Montagues brawl in the streets of Verona. Their enmity escalates, encloses every kin in a web of hate, erupts in violence, and engulfs the hot bloods in a blood bath. Against this background, the Bard of Avon unveils the love of two young people doomed by destiny to suffer, like Hamlet, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

In this current production, the twelve signs of the zodiac hover ominously above the stage to represent the influence of fate over the lives of the lovers (Andrew Vergara and Arlynne Lupas). Unlike Hamlet who is undone by his own indecision or Macbeth whose downfall is caused by his overweening ambition, Romeo and Juliet appear to be unlucky victims of unfeeling constellations that light their way "to dusty death." Had stars of ill-luck hung above their birth beds like the proverbial sword of Damocles and prevailed over their own power of free will?

The lovers rebel against their respective families and wed in secret, with Juliet’s Nurse (Linda Lupton) playing the pander and Fray Laurence (Ogie Juliano) the co-conspirator. The priest hopes that the union of the couple in solemn matrimony will end the enmity between the Capulets and Montagues but his plan fails to materialize. The death of Mercutio (Jonic Magno) by the hand of Tybalt (Charlton Laurence Villanueva) and the killing of the latter by Romeo make the padre’s plot an impossibility. Lord Capulet (Richard Cunanan) pledges his daughter to Paris (James Gregory Paolelli).

Juliet runs to Fray Laurence for advice. The priest proposes but fate disposes, if an old adage may be misquoted. He gives the frantic girl a sleeping potion to swallow, an elixir that will place her in a state resembling that of death. He then will send a message to Romeo who has been exiled to Mantua by Prince Escalus explaining his scheme. Romeo is to return in haste to Verona, recover his bride from the ancestral Capulet burial vault before she awakens from the effect of the potion and then flee with her to safety.

But fate intervenes and foils Friar Lawrence’s plan. The messenger that he sends to Mantua is detained because of a quarantine. The news that reaches Romeo first is that about Juliet’s demise. He rushes to her tomb, finds her lying in state, and empties a vial of poison. Just as he breaths his last, Juliet awakens, sees her husband dead and stabs herself with his knife. The audience is stunned by the irony of circumstance. If only the message of Friar Lawrence has reached Romeo on time… if only there has been no quarantine… if only Romeo does not take the poison too soon… if only Juliet awakens sooner… if… if…

In his Director’s Notes, Jonas Sebastian states: "To our modern sensibilities, however, irrational and whimsical, Fate is no longer completely acceptable as the primary force governing human lives. The tragic twists of events in Romeo and Juliet result not only from the incompatibility of their ideals with the realities of their world. I think the same is true for us today. Like Romeo and Juliet, we live in a small world whose material wealth is as great as our ethical poverty. We continually strive for perfection in the midst of corruption."

This production aims to address a new generation–one addicted to MTV and the malls, billiards and booze. Whether the interpolation of songs by Lester Demetillo using Shakespeare’s lyrics, the music of Tchaikovsky’s overture and Prokofiev’s ballet score, and moving the period from the Renaissance to the Baroque (or is it Rococo?) with Ogie Juliano’s costume creations will do the trick remains in doubt.

Nowadays, the purist is challenged to adapt his sensibility to the taste of the times. Is Shakespeare to be bowdlerized again? In the late ’60s, Franco Zeffirelli presented Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey in a film firmly faithful to classical ideals. Lately, Baz Luhrman cast Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in an idiosyncratic innovative movie that assaults the senses.

Among the great lovers of literary and history, none can compare in their hold on the imagination than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet–not Virgil’s Aeneas and Dido, Guinevere and Launcelot of Camelot, Strassburg’s Tristan and Iseult, Dante’s Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, Abelard and Heloise, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The love of Romeo and Juliet may have lasted for only three or four days–from the chance meeting at the ball of the Capulets and the assignation on the balcony of the manor to Juliet’s room where their love is consummated and they argue over the song of the nightingale and the call of the lark, but the story of that love will live for all time.

Perchance, it is not a cruel fate operating here but a Divine Providence who works in mysterious ways above human understanding allowing the tragedy of the lovers to end an ancient feud and bring peace and harmony to a troubled land.

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon’d and some punished;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

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For comments, write jessqcruz@hotmail.com...