It takes a true artist to be thematically serious while humorously cynical and off-putting. Because of this, parodies are incredibly difficult to pull off. The University of Iowa’s theatre department took on this endeavor with their production of “Romeo & Juliet.”
Transforming Shakespeare’s timeless play, director and graduate student Søren Olsen created a steamy show with raunchy romance, trashy celebrity parties, and witty, ridiculous arguments.
UI first-year student Jimmy Rempel was part of the Capulet ensemble and witnessed firsthand Olsen exercise liberties with the original text.
“Pretty much everything I did and said was very different from the original text. I was also much snarkier than in the original,” he said.
The 1996 Baz Luhrmann version brought Shakespeare to the modern, hip setting of Verona, Italy, and depicted the Capulets and the Montagues as two rivaling gangs.
The stark contrast of murder, frenzied shootouts, and turf wars to this couple overcome by childlike delusion and wonder with each other, comprised the parody elements.
Luhrmann accomplished this by using colorful lights and texts, pop culture references, and a red-curtain aesthetic that almost mocked theatrical composition. However, time, language, and character traits were accurate to the original. The deaths of Romeo and Juliet were also just as tragic as written, if not more, and that seems to ring true across all productions.
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Olsen maintained the same despairing elements in his version, but enhanced the sexual intimacies and implications of forbidden romance. Audience member Amaya McNeal noticed this was done mostly through humor.
“A lot of the humor came from Mercutio’s character. His sexual allusions are the majority of his stage time,” she said.
Other differences she drew from in this version were the focus on time dilation, odd transitions, and a nuanced characterization of several characters.
“The best part of the script was the freedom that a lot of the cast was given for certain sections of the show,” McNeal said. “Mercutio was allowed to tweak or almost entirely change a lot of the lines to fit the character and tone of the moment.”
Olsen must be on his way to becoming one of the greats, because it seems that Luhrmann afforded his actors the same privilege. Harold Perrineau’s Mercutio wore a skirt and did drag because the actor himself suggested it.
To Luhrmann, Mercutio was more in love with Romeo than Juliet was, but not romantically — just “in the way 14-year-old boys are.” Assuming this, his parody mocked Romeo and Juliet’s affair by depicting them as a pair of ridiculous, horny, and rebellious tweens.
However, McNeal did not find Olsen’s work to be a parody.
“A parody is made to naturally poke fun at an original concept or idea,” she said. “I don’t think that this interpretation of Romeo and Juliet was intended to do that so much as it was highlighting the lost humor within the tragedy.”
So unlike Luhrmann, Olsen’s piece did not seem at all concerned with who was in love with whom. Instead, it focused on drawing the intimacies out of love and making them lighthearted but equally painful and tragic.