Wherefore Art Thou?
O Romeo, Romeo!
Errrr, I mean…. Romiette!
Seems like ages ago now, but I’d better get down some thoughts about my brief stint as a female Romeo in Lauren Morley’s new comedy Romiette & Julio.
It was rather a whirlwind process with rehearsals only spanning over 2 days, but luckily it was a reading, so we were permitted to use scripts and stumble a bit from scene to scene.
Romeo/Romiette has been rewritten as a Texan teen struggling between her love for Julio (son to Representative Capulet campaigning to tear down the wall between Mexico and the US) and her duty to the family business/her father (whose company, Montague Corp, has been contracted to build the wall). The premise works well. Lessons are learned and nobody dies so…comedy!
In the original play, Romeo’s gender grants him agency. While Juliet must remain cooped up at home, Romeo is permitted to be out in the wide world carousing with his buddies and, ostensibly, making arrangements for he and Juliet to be together. But despite Romeo’s gender privilege of freedom, Juliet is actually the pragmatic lover who schemes, organises, and makes shit happen. You get the feeling that Romeo would live out his days just mooning around if Juliet didn’t issue him concrete orders for ACTION. So, Shakespeare actually subverts traditional notions of gender in these characterisations (as in many of his other plays, of course).
Interesting, in the gender-swapped Romiette & Julio, Romiette retains Juliet’s sense of ‘masculine’ decisiveness and surety. It is Juliet who very quickly and suddenly turns to conversation to marriage in the original balcony scene; no question, Romeo, you will marry me tomorrow! In this playwright’s version, it is Romiette who suggests to Julio that they must marry to solve their woes. And then Romiette goes back out into the wide world and makes that happen.
So, of course, my favourite part about playing Romiette was her freedom. It was liberating to have a chance to be on the other side of Juliet’s isolation, loneliness, and independence. Romiette has her gang, friends–gets to laugh and joke with Mercutio and Ben and walk the streets of Verona as she pleases. I liked being with the boys. Unbridled, mercurial, melodramatic. And, as the playwright said of my performance, feisty.
Although I think my Juliet is pretty feisty too.
What’s next? Well, I’ve got a couple of auditions this week (I have to ‘tell a joke’ in one of them–I don’t know any jokes–do you think observational sarcastic commentary about an idiot people counts?) as well as yet another potentially crazzzzzzzzy day-job-work-crisis meltdown scenario in Poowich so… wish me luck! If I survive, I’ll be back to fill you in on all that, tell you about an exciting trip to Shakespeare’s Globe with Sinéad Beastie and Cordelia, and share another Shakespearean monologue.
Until then… adieu, gentle readers. Let’s go get ’em this week!
xWeekes
Winter-Maker 
Well, I am thoroughly confused! I guess it was facilitated by the fact you never changed your gender—-female. Break a Leg tomorrow!
I am sorry…I do not know any jokes so none to share. I hate jokes…never “get” them. too bad we don’t still have that bathroom joke book. But you may not remember that, Baby Girl!
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This R + J rewrite is so interesting and timely. I’m glad to hear that no one dies! I like the idea that Juliet and Romiette’s decisiveness drive the plot in both, and am glad that, in this version, Romiette and Julio get to have their day in the sun. Congrats on this performance, and all best on your auditions this week, and with that joke. You’ll do great!
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Thanks for stopping by, Shirley! Yes, it was nice to see them happily together in the end 🙂
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You look like you’re having so much fun in these pictures it makes me smile just looking at them! And I would love to see R&J as a comedy, although the production I saw at the Globe last year did work in a lot of humor, so I imagine it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to make it more comic if you got rid of the whole teenage suicide thing.
As for jokes, the only one I know off hand is pretty stupid but it makes me laugh….you start out saying something like, “There’s a joke but I can only remember the punchline.” Hopefully someone asks what the punchline is, and you say, “So the proctologist says, ‘Rectum? I nearly killed him.” (Rectum sounding like “wrecked him” I know, so lame, but that’s why I don’t write comedy.
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Yeah, it’s actually a reallllllly funny play that only takes a turn the moment Mercutio dies. Take out all the deaths, and there ya go, comedy!
Hhahaha. I think I’m going to go with a similarly punny Shakespearean knock knock joke… I’ll let you know how it goes. And you DO write comedy! You make me lol allllll the time!
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Shakespeare pun?! I gotta hear it!
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I second that! 😀
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Knock knock…
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Oooh, who’s there?
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Lloyd….
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Lloyd who?
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Lloyd, what fools these mortals be!!!!! (in a hilarious 1940s New Yorker accent)
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HA!😂😂😂 I like it. Ya got moxie, kid! (I think I’m doing the same hilarious accent? I’m not really sure)
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😂😂😂
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Ohhhhhh, how cool to see you in action! And you look like you’re having a BLAST! The play sounds awesome too – a clever twist on a classic, and I really enjoyed your insights into the original too.
Aaand, if it’s not too late… My go-to joke is:
– What’s green and hairy and goes up and down?
– A gooseberry in a lift.
Then you laugh uproariously until everyone else joins in. Break a leg! 😀
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Ugh, well tragically, I was not asked to deliver my joke (thank god)!!!!!! At least I’ll be prepared for next time….?
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Awww, what a swizz! (She said, in true 1980s British comic style) You’re still going to tell us though, right?
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