Life is weird. If you had told me a year ago that I'd be getting ready to play Juliet (Yeah, THAT Juliet.) in a few short months I would have thought you were CRAZY. I've never really even entertained the idea of it being a possibility of it happening. Never mind the fact that I'm 23 (I'll be 24 by curtain) and Juliet is 13, a fact that's referenced FREQUENTLY throughout the play. Is it crazy to have a complex about this? Probably.
As a singer first and foremost, my performance background has always been tightly defined, lyric mezzo-soprano (with "a belt" if we're talkin' MT Land). Translation: I'm the plucky best friend (sometimes literally)/3-scene maid/old lady/occasional whore/PANTS ROLE. The fach system rules opera so there isn't a whole lot of freedom as far as repertoire goes. The most famous R + J adaptations in the opera rep are Gounod's Romeo et Juliette and Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Both feature sopranos as Juliet. Before this production, I was far more familiar with the character arcs of Stephano, a somewhat superfluous character in Gounod's adaptation that doesn't even exist in Shakespeare's text & Romeo in the bel canto rep - also a pants role. Bellini's Romeo is a kick-butt role, one that requires incredible energy and sensitivity as an actress, but it's a far different physical capacity and headspace than playing a female character. Both of these operas take considerable liberties with Shakespeare's story, but that's to be expected as one can tell from the vast disparities between the film versions that exist. This role comes with a lot of expectations because everyone has an idea of who this character is. As I'm delving into this script, I'm trying to find pieces of myself in her. It's certainly interesting looking at this play at this point in my life compared to the past two times I've delved into it. I remember reading the play and watching the Zefferelli and Baz Luhrmann films in 9th grade and the only thing I really solidly remembering is all the sexual innuendo and jokes that were pointed out to us. I feel like that, plus learning the time span in which the story takes place, put me off the play. I think I really learned to appreciate it when I studied it in college in my EN333 Shakespeare class. The class was an English class, but our professor had a deep appreciation for the stage (We all went to see Othello that spring.) and that coupled with her completeness and thoroughness in our leading our readings, really helped me appreciate the play in its Elizabethan frame of mind. Romeo as the Petrachaen lover, Juliet as the grounding force in the balcony scene, the analogies to books (Lady Capulet telling Juliet about Paris) and rewriting stories, the list could go on and on. I saw Romeo as a much flightier although equally passionate character. The stress put on Juliet seemed so far greater. She was bound by far more conventions as a woman than Romeo was by a man. Pressure from her family controlled her and ultimately she commits the more violent of the suicides (stabbing vs. poison). Plus we have the Prince's final line where Shakespeare lists Juliet first: "Than this of Juliet and her Romeo." That's powerful and interesting stuff! This is a young woman with an incredible amount of heart and in a sense, a unique sense of strength. I'm curious to dive into her mind and bring her to life here in North Alabama.
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