To celebrate the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (2008) the Malta Drama Centre will present a full-scale modern version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on 25, 26 July 2008. The new version, which will involve music and choreography as well as singing segments, will be staged with a multi-ethnic cast of young people by Julie Saunders, an actress-director with plenty of professional experience on the British and American stage and TV networks.
Ms Saunders was interviewed extensively by Malta Today journalist Karl Schembri, himself an author and excerpts of the interview were carried in Malta Today in April, 2008.
The following is the full, unedited text of the interview given by Ms Saunders, which is being posted here exclusively.
How does the production of Romeo and Juliet relate to the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue? With whom is the play offering "dialogue"?
We are "celebrating" the Year of Intercultural Dialogue because in our Romeo and Juliet with a cast of 18 we have 9/10 diverse cultures. On top of that we have a section of the cast who have never been out of Britain so for them it's to raise awareness of the different cultures in Europe.
One of Theatre Studio West�s aims is to promote our cultural diversity through Theatre. The Drama Centre is facilitating that process and opening the door for dialogue with the Maltese audiences. I am excited and grateful for that opportunity.
Are you using the feuding families as a metaphor?
Our emphasis has always been to tell Shakespeare's story, of course giving it a modern setting and having a young multi-ethnic cast does have connotations. I like to leave the audience to explore, agree or disagree with those.
You say that this will be a modern interpretation echoing "classical Europe". How do you reconcile both realities?
Shakespeare has made that task easy, he was a master of taking the ideas that most humans encounter in their lives regardless of when they happened or existed and interweaving them into his plays.
Feuding families, old hatred, racism, mindless violence, love, politics, power and religion. What could be more contemporary? The themes and emotions of his plays are timeless.
I have read that your favourite dramatist is Edward Bond (who incidentally had been to Malta in 2002 to run drama workshops). You quote Bond: society is bringing about its own destruction. How does this negative deduction affect your interpretation of Romeo and Juliet?
Edward Bond is one of my favourite playwrights along with Shakespeare, August Wilson and Wole Soyinka.
The full quote is "in trying to defend itself society is bringing about its own destruction" I don't think its negative I think it's simply the truth.
Montagues versus Capulets, an inexplicable, unending hatred. Each family's entire identity has become ingrained in this conflict and to release or give up the hatred would be as if they were giving up their identity. Against this backdrop, the love of Romeo and Juliet is played out, offering the chance of redemption and reintegration.
They choose, out of fear, to defend the hatred, and they loose their children, in turn they loose their future.
The quote doesn't affect my interpretation it informs it.
Tell me about the "trigger happy rage" you indicate for your production.
I used that phrase to symbolise the thoughtless and breathless pace of the violence in the play. In our interpretation we decided to use Indonesian knife stagefighting intermingled with edgy, fast paced dance to demonstrate the violence that is effortlessly, ignited in the pack mentality.
I don't think two young people would be prepared to die for one another nowadays. Love seems to be dealt with more cynically in our time. What do you think?
Romeo and Juliet's love for each other is out of place in the context of their society, as it would be today. Although, I think we have an innate need to believe in love and all its possibilities - our capacity to love and need for love.
Shouldn't one of effects of a good production of Romeo and Juliet somehow awaken the young person in us and make us believe the intensity of love again?
Romeo and Juliet. Well enough. But what do they achieve in the end? Is a society worth dying for? Or love, for that matter?
We are informed from the beginning that Romeo and Juliet are going to die Shakespeare doesn't want us to focus on that, but more on the journey to their destruction and why society allows it to happen. If you accept the end of the play then the achievement is the long awaited reconciliation of the feuding families. A high price to pay, but what Shakespeare also does is to brutally shame us into the final realisation that five young lives have been lost and what an utterly, devastating waste that is.
In your production notes for the London premiere you wrote that human society doesn't leave room for the wonderful. Isn't that another bleak assessment?
In the context of the play I believe that's happened, the conflicted society that Romeo and Juliet have grown up in, can't accept the all- consuming wonder of their love, can�t or refuses to understand or ultimately accept their non-conformity.
You also say that Romeo and Juliet are fearless. Would you say they are also naive? And do you think there is really the spirit of rebellion among young people out there as reflected in Romeo and Juliet?
Romeo and Juliet are little more than children when the play begins so there is a naivety about them, particularly Juliet. During the play they undergo a cruelly accelerated "fearful passage" into adulthood they do that fearlessly.
Yes, I absolutely think there is the spirit of rebellion among young people. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't do the job I do.
What about the multi-ethnic participation in your production of Romeo and Juliet: Was this a "political choice"?
My intention has been to create a story embedded in the real world, one that reaches out to touch us all today.
Should theatre be political and to what extent?
Everyone has such wildly differing theories about political theatre, some would say everything is political in some way.
I do believe that power of a play can change the way an audience sees the world and can be used as an effective tool because theatre is about doing as much as it is about describing. It's about being somewhere in time and space, being part of an event. But there's a delicate balance I abhor the notion of forcing political ideas onto a piece of theatre for the sake of it or removing it to conform to political correctness.
Why would one wish to watch your version of Romeo and Juliet?
People should come to our show to experience an exhilarating night at the theatre.
Although the play has been interpreted with a modern setting we've kept faithful to Shakespeare's story and even the language we modernised has been kept in Shakespeare's verse.
Our version of Romeo and Juliet is performed by an exceptionally talented young cast it is a play that is by turns delicate and intense, uproariously funny with our Caribbean Nurse, bohemian Friar and lecherous Mr Capulet. It's heartrendingly sad and has the vitality of youth and the genuine poignancy that I think Shakespeare intended.
In the end all we've tried to do, as said in our London programme, is to "tell the story with truth against a backdrop of simplicity".
Ms Saunders was interviewed extensively by Malta Today journalist Karl Schembri, himself an author and excerpts of the interview were carried in Malta Today in April, 2008.
The following is the full, unedited text of the interview given by Ms Saunders, which is being posted here exclusively.
How does the production of Romeo and Juliet relate to the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue? With whom is the play offering "dialogue"?
We are "celebrating" the Year of Intercultural Dialogue because in our Romeo and Juliet with a cast of 18 we have 9/10 diverse cultures. On top of that we have a section of the cast who have never been out of Britain so for them it's to raise awareness of the different cultures in Europe.
One of Theatre Studio West�s aims is to promote our cultural diversity through Theatre. The Drama Centre is facilitating that process and opening the door for dialogue with the Maltese audiences. I am excited and grateful for that opportunity.
Are you using the feuding families as a metaphor?
Our emphasis has always been to tell Shakespeare's story, of course giving it a modern setting and having a young multi-ethnic cast does have connotations. I like to leave the audience to explore, agree or disagree with those.
You say that this will be a modern interpretation echoing "classical Europe". How do you reconcile both realities?
Shakespeare has made that task easy, he was a master of taking the ideas that most humans encounter in their lives regardless of when they happened or existed and interweaving them into his plays.
Feuding families, old hatred, racism, mindless violence, love, politics, power and religion. What could be more contemporary? The themes and emotions of his plays are timeless.
I have read that your favourite dramatist is Edward Bond (who incidentally had been to Malta in 2002 to run drama workshops). You quote Bond: society is bringing about its own destruction. How does this negative deduction affect your interpretation of Romeo and Juliet?
Edward Bond is one of my favourite playwrights along with Shakespeare, August Wilson and Wole Soyinka.
The full quote is "in trying to defend itself society is bringing about its own destruction" I don't think its negative I think it's simply the truth.
Montagues versus Capulets, an inexplicable, unending hatred. Each family's entire identity has become ingrained in this conflict and to release or give up the hatred would be as if they were giving up their identity. Against this backdrop, the love of Romeo and Juliet is played out, offering the chance of redemption and reintegration.
They choose, out of fear, to defend the hatred, and they loose their children, in turn they loose their future.
The quote doesn't affect my interpretation it informs it.
Tell me about the "trigger happy rage" you indicate for your production.
I used that phrase to symbolise the thoughtless and breathless pace of the violence in the play. In our interpretation we decided to use Indonesian knife stagefighting intermingled with edgy, fast paced dance to demonstrate the violence that is effortlessly, ignited in the pack mentality.
I don't think two young people would be prepared to die for one another nowadays. Love seems to be dealt with more cynically in our time. What do you think?
Romeo and Juliet's love for each other is out of place in the context of their society, as it would be today. Although, I think we have an innate need to believe in love and all its possibilities - our capacity to love and need for love.
Shouldn't one of effects of a good production of Romeo and Juliet somehow awaken the young person in us and make us believe the intensity of love again?
Romeo and Juliet. Well enough. But what do they achieve in the end? Is a society worth dying for? Or love, for that matter?
We are informed from the beginning that Romeo and Juliet are going to die Shakespeare doesn't want us to focus on that, but more on the journey to their destruction and why society allows it to happen. If you accept the end of the play then the achievement is the long awaited reconciliation of the feuding families. A high price to pay, but what Shakespeare also does is to brutally shame us into the final realisation that five young lives have been lost and what an utterly, devastating waste that is.
In your production notes for the London premiere you wrote that human society doesn't leave room for the wonderful. Isn't that another bleak assessment?
In the context of the play I believe that's happened, the conflicted society that Romeo and Juliet have grown up in, can't accept the all- consuming wonder of their love, can�t or refuses to understand or ultimately accept their non-conformity.
You also say that Romeo and Juliet are fearless. Would you say they are also naive? And do you think there is really the spirit of rebellion among young people out there as reflected in Romeo and Juliet?
Romeo and Juliet are little more than children when the play begins so there is a naivety about them, particularly Juliet. During the play they undergo a cruelly accelerated "fearful passage" into adulthood they do that fearlessly.
Yes, I absolutely think there is the spirit of rebellion among young people. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't do the job I do.
What about the multi-ethnic participation in your production of Romeo and Juliet: Was this a "political choice"?
My intention has been to create a story embedded in the real world, one that reaches out to touch us all today.
Should theatre be political and to what extent?
Everyone has such wildly differing theories about political theatre, some would say everything is political in some way.
I do believe that power of a play can change the way an audience sees the world and can be used as an effective tool because theatre is about doing as much as it is about describing. It's about being somewhere in time and space, being part of an event. But there's a delicate balance I abhor the notion of forcing political ideas onto a piece of theatre for the sake of it or removing it to conform to political correctness.
Why would one wish to watch your version of Romeo and Juliet?
People should come to our show to experience an exhilarating night at the theatre.
Although the play has been interpreted with a modern setting we've kept faithful to Shakespeare's story and even the language we modernised has been kept in Shakespeare's verse.
Our version of Romeo and Juliet is performed by an exceptionally talented young cast it is a play that is by turns delicate and intense, uproariously funny with our Caribbean Nurse, bohemian Friar and lecherous Mr Capulet. It's heartrendingly sad and has the vitality of youth and the genuine poignancy that I think Shakespeare intended.
In the end all we've tried to do, as said in our London programme, is to "tell the story with truth against a backdrop of simplicity".
© 2008 - The Drama Centre Malta , All rights reserved.
The Malta Drama Centre
INTERVIEW WITH ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JULIE SAUNDERS
OF STUDIO THEATRE WEST(LONDON)
A State institution providing comprehensive drama training, including outreach theatre.