Seemingly unsatisfied with presenting Shakespeare in its original form anymore, the theatre world has developed two unique methods of Shakespeare modernization: the hybrid (hereafter referred to as "Shakespeare in 80’s clothing") and the retelling (“West Side Story,” “Kiss Me Kate”). While works from the latter movement are certainly staples of the theatre in their own right, the former pseudo-modernizations of Shakespeare have become a widespread trend for those wishing to present Shakespeare's plays in their original form. More often than not, current theatrical productions of Shakespeare’s most popular works attempt to incorporate some element of modern culture in their presentation, while retaining the original dialect of the text. Perhaps the most recognizable example of this trend comes from the world of film with Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet, which transports the original text of the play into the setting of modern day suburbia. The theatrical trend, if not outright inspired by the film’s artistic choice, often tends to mirror its formula to varying degrees. Supporters of this hybrid form of modernization often cite its ability to bring a story’s complexities into a relatable context and apply its universal themes to the world around us.
The Human Race Theatre Company’s recent production of “Romeo and Juliet,” however, highlighted to me the flaws in this system of modernization. Per the trend, the text of the play was kept in traditional Shakespearean dialect, while many of the character, costume, and setting elements were modernized. The major problem with this, though, was that these elements were not fully brought into our modern world, but existed in some sort of jet-lagged cultural continuum that borrowed elements from multiple cultures between, and including, the two primary time periods. Certain characters (Paris, Lord Montague, Lady Capulet) seemed grounded in a primarily Shakespearean context; others were undeniably modern in tone of speech and action (Mercutio, Juliet). Complicating the concept even further were the entirely anachronistic elements, such as the choice to make Juliet’s nurse a Cockney maid character better suited for a Frances Hodgson Burnett novel. The costumes were just as uneven, influenced by everything from turn-of-the century Dubliners and the aristocracy of the Renaissance to Indian saris and modern-day punk culture (sometimes utilizing a number of these elements within one character’s costume).
It seems to me that on paper, a bizarre sort of argument could be made in favor of such a hodgepodge arrangement of aesthetic elements: by encompassing such a wide variety of cultural influences, the play’s themes become applicable to all of the following cultures, producing a universalizing effect. However good this approach might sound in theory, though, the tangible result only leaves the audience member feeling disjointed, as the Race's production showed. Even though much of the acting in this production was high quality, and the show itself was enjoyable, the utter lack of a concrete, underlying artistic choice undermined the entire purpose of modernizing the story. The themes were not applicable to the modern world, because they could not even be applied to a concrete world within the show. The kaleidoscope aesthetic prevented the story from being grounded in a relatable reality.
Certainly, this production is an extreme example of the “Shakespeare in 80’s clothing” disconnect, but it highlights the problems presented by hybrid modernization. Relatability is not found because a story takes place in a time and place similar to our own; it is found when the characters and their world are developed strongly enough that their world becomes tangible enough for the audience to understand life in that world. It’s a variant on the everyman idea (thank you, Dr. Flanagan)—if you want to write the relatable everyman character, you don’t write him generic enough that anyone can relate, you write him specific enough that he becomes real and therefore relatable.
This is not to say that I’m advocating against the modernization of classic stories, but rather the arbitrary modernization that has become so prevalent in the theatre as of late. The “Shakespeare in 80’s clothing” modernization often attempts to find new meaning through a merely aesthetic change. In order to find new insight through stylistic changes such as these, there has to be an underlying purpose for making such changes. A good example of this can be found in another recent production of “Romeo and Juliet” I saw, which on the surface fell into the hybrid modernization category, but managed to avoid the trap of the arbitrary modernization. This production kept the original dialect of the text but set itself in modern day suburbia, casting the younger characters as high school students. The difference, though, was that the changes didn’t stop at the aesthetic element—as a result, the Capulet/Montague interaction was laced with gang undertones (a lot less “West Side Story” than it sounds here, or at least approached in a different way), and the ending swapped out Juliet’s traditional “happy dagger” scene and the subsequent mending of the families’ relationship for the final image of Juliet pressing a gun to the side of her head before the stage went black and the sound of a single gunshot was heard. Here, the modernization was not a copout attempt to find “modern significance” in an old story, but the only viable means by which to emphasize a different facet of the story: the horror of violence and hatred and its effect on characters that we all too often forget are children. In this case, the aesthetic concepts served the story, not the other way around.
Eventually, this argument leads back to the enigmatic question of why we as a culture are constantly compelled to reexamine classic stories in new ways. We see this phenomenon throughout popular culture, manifesting prominently in the worlds of theatre, film, literature, and even music; works as disparate as "Wicked" and Ulysses stem from the same basic premise of thrusting familiar narratives into an entirely new perspective. Our question could be rebuffed by turning to the old argument that there are no new stories, only new tellers, but the truth of the matter lies beyond such rhetoric. With the reexamination of a familiar story, we are presented with the tantalizing prospect of seeing a situation from an eye outside our own limited perspective of the known version.
The Human Race Theatre Company’s recent production of “Romeo and Juliet,” however, highlighted to me the flaws in this system of modernization. Per the trend, the text of the play was kept in traditional Shakespearean dialect, while many of the character, costume, and setting elements were modernized. The major problem with this, though, was that these elements were not fully brought into our modern world, but existed in some sort of jet-lagged cultural continuum that borrowed elements from multiple cultures between, and including, the two primary time periods. Certain characters (Paris, Lord Montague, Lady Capulet) seemed grounded in a primarily Shakespearean context; others were undeniably modern in tone of speech and action (Mercutio, Juliet). Complicating the concept even further were the entirely anachronistic elements, such as the choice to make Juliet’s nurse a Cockney maid character better suited for a Frances Hodgson Burnett novel. The costumes were just as uneven, influenced by everything from turn-of-the century Dubliners and the aristocracy of the Renaissance to Indian saris and modern-day punk culture (sometimes utilizing a number of these elements within one character’s costume).
It seems to me that on paper, a bizarre sort of argument could be made in favor of such a hodgepodge arrangement of aesthetic elements: by encompassing such a wide variety of cultural influences, the play’s themes become applicable to all of the following cultures, producing a universalizing effect. However good this approach might sound in theory, though, the tangible result only leaves the audience member feeling disjointed, as the Race's production showed. Even though much of the acting in this production was high quality, and the show itself was enjoyable, the utter lack of a concrete, underlying artistic choice undermined the entire purpose of modernizing the story. The themes were not applicable to the modern world, because they could not even be applied to a concrete world within the show. The kaleidoscope aesthetic prevented the story from being grounded in a relatable reality.
Certainly, this production is an extreme example of the “Shakespeare in 80’s clothing” disconnect, but it highlights the problems presented by hybrid modernization. Relatability is not found because a story takes place in a time and place similar to our own; it is found when the characters and their world are developed strongly enough that their world becomes tangible enough for the audience to understand life in that world. It’s a variant on the everyman idea (thank you, Dr. Flanagan)—if you want to write the relatable everyman character, you don’t write him generic enough that anyone can relate, you write him specific enough that he becomes real and therefore relatable.
This is not to say that I’m advocating against the modernization of classic stories, but rather the arbitrary modernization that has become so prevalent in the theatre as of late. The “Shakespeare in 80’s clothing” modernization often attempts to find new meaning through a merely aesthetic change. In order to find new insight through stylistic changes such as these, there has to be an underlying purpose for making such changes. A good example of this can be found in another recent production of “Romeo and Juliet” I saw, which on the surface fell into the hybrid modernization category, but managed to avoid the trap of the arbitrary modernization. This production kept the original dialect of the text but set itself in modern day suburbia, casting the younger characters as high school students. The difference, though, was that the changes didn’t stop at the aesthetic element—as a result, the Capulet/Montague interaction was laced with gang undertones (a lot less “West Side Story” than it sounds here, or at least approached in a different way), and the ending swapped out Juliet’s traditional “happy dagger” scene and the subsequent mending of the families’ relationship for the final image of Juliet pressing a gun to the side of her head before the stage went black and the sound of a single gunshot was heard. Here, the modernization was not a copout attempt to find “modern significance” in an old story, but the only viable means by which to emphasize a different facet of the story: the horror of violence and hatred and its effect on characters that we all too often forget are children. In this case, the aesthetic concepts served the story, not the other way around.
Eventually, this argument leads back to the enigmatic question of why we as a culture are constantly compelled to reexamine classic stories in new ways. We see this phenomenon throughout popular culture, manifesting prominently in the worlds of theatre, film, literature, and even music; works as disparate as "Wicked" and Ulysses stem from the same basic premise of thrusting familiar narratives into an entirely new perspective. Our question could be rebuffed by turning to the old argument that there are no new stories, only new tellers, but the truth of the matter lies beyond such rhetoric. With the reexamination of a familiar story, we are presented with the tantalizing prospect of seeing a situation from an eye outside our own limited perspective of the known version.
Yet the way the “Shakespeare in 80s clothing” movement goes about this is flawed in more ways than just the aforementioned straying from the needs of the story as focus. We often overlook the impact of setting in storytelling, but the time period and physical space of a story can often have more influence over its unfolding than any other single element of craft. Where and when we take an action ultimately determines the course of that action, whether we realize it or not, so separating setting from action in storytelling produces a resulting story that cannot exist in reality. While we love to contemplate the “universal” themes of “Romeo and Juliet,” the truth is that the events of the story, occurring exactly as they are written in the original text, cannot exist outside of the figurative realm of Verona by way of Shakespearean England; if they attempted to do such, they would be unmistakably altered by the setting they did end up in. The example above of the production ending with Juliet’s fatal gunshot works not only because the setting change is used to serve the purpose of that particular retelling, but because the story allows itself to be influenced to its natural outcome in the altered setting. If the ultimate goal of the retelling of the classic story is the above idea of seeing outside the limited perspective, all we accomplish by forcing a story into our own world without considering the full effect of such a change is an untrue version on our own perspective reflected back to us. But by fully understanding the effect of seeing a story through a new perspective and carrying out the necessary implications in the story itself, the premise allows art to accomplish what reality cannot—a concrete possibility that perspectives outside our own actually exist in the real world.
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