PANDEMIC SHAKES UP NEW ROMEO & JULIET
Actors adjust to pared-down version updated for the modern world
Haysam Kadri’s The Shakespeare Company has always prided itself in presenting lean, mean versions of Shakespeare’s plays.
Because of the current pandemic, things have gotten even leaner and meaner for this year’s Shakespeare by the Bow production of Romeo & Juliet, a collaboration between The Shakespeare Company, Hit & Myth Productions and Theatre Calgary.
Social distancing prevents this play from being presented at Prince’s Island Park as it has for the past number of years, so it will be screened live every Wednesday and Saturday at 7 p.m. from Saturday through July 18. Instructions on how to access these free viewings will be available at theatrecalgary.com for each scheduled viewing.
Kadri and Theatre Calgary associate Jenna Turk have trimmed Shakespeare’s beloved romantic tragedy to a brief 50 minutes. Zach Running Coyote, who plays Romeo to Anna Dalgleish’s Juliet, promises “every single scene in the play is in our production. It’s just that they are highly abbreviated. Everything that should happen in the play does happen. We just move through scenes much, much faster.”
Running Coyote and Dalgleish are a couple in real life so they will be screened together from their condo where they have been rehearsing. Their co-stars will be screened from their homes in Calgary and Edmonton.
Dalgleish says that, under Kadri’s direction, the cast “has been working as hard as possible to keep this Romeo & Juliet from feeling like a staged reading. We’re moving around our rooms and even our houses. We’re not sitting still simply delivering speeches. Each performance will be a live experience in every sense of the word. That means actors might forget a line, trip as they’re moving around.”
The online process has forced Dalgleish and Running Coyote to imagine that their co-stars, such as Kaeley Jade Wiebe’s nurse, Melanie Bahniuk’s Lady Capulet or Chelsea Woodard’s Tybalt, are in the same room with them. Fortunately, their pairing as lovers has allowed them to interact directly.
“We can make eye contact and we can touch each other for the pivotal scenes in the play,” Dalgleish said. “It heightened the reality for Zach and me and will hopefully do the same for our audiences.”
Running Coyote points out that his condo actually has a balcony, so they have “found a way to preserve the reality of that moment and we end up using every nook and cranny of the condo. It helps make the show very physical.”
Dalgleish says the same inventiveness holds true for all the cast members.
“We’ve found really wild situations to enhance the scenes. When Melanie, who plays my mother,
comes to tell me I must marry Paris, she is dressed in her bathrobe with a towel wrapped around her head as if she just got out of the shower.”
Running Coyote points out this Romeo & Juliet is absolutely contemporary.
“My Romeo is a gamer kid and Juliet is always on social media. Instagram messages will pop up for Juliet. The characters will occasionally wear protective masks, especially if scenes are set outdoors. We’re acknowledging current situations,” Running Coyote says.
“The Capulets are stricter than the Montagues. Romeo still likes to hang out with his friends in defiance of regulations. He’s rash and impulsive but he has a large heart.”
Dalgleish says her Juliet is “whip-smart, commits to her feelings and surrenders to the truth of what’s in her heart. She’s unafraid to stand up to her family.”