A disillusioned young man making films about a world he doesn’t understand falls for the beautiful and willful heiress to a real estate empire.
These star-crossed lovers are the faces of the ROŪGE’s production of “Romeo & Juliet,” which will be performed on the grounds of the historic Lynnhaven House in Virginia Beach beginning Thursday. The show runs through June 21.
The characters have a contemporary silhouette. Paris, Juliet’s betrothed, is a politically ambitious tech mogul, and cousin Tybalt is a fiercely protective military vet.
Despite the redressing, director Patrick Mullins said the themes and story are undeniably Shakespearean – timeless and cathartic.
Mullins has been touring variations of his interpretation of “Romeo & Juliet” in Hampton Roads since 2009. This version features parallel scene splicing and overlapping prose, but the dialogue is taken directly from the original text.
“While they are archetypes, they’re not two-dimensional archetypes,” said Mullins about the characters. “That’s the reason these stories last.”
The characters are complicated and flawed, Mullins said, but also clowns. And more than anything, “They all want what’s best for the people around them.”
The play location also ties into the story, Mullins said, becoming a character in its own right. The 300-year-old Lynnhaven House brings a visceral sense of immersion to the production. The venue is written to be Juliet’s backyard, with a treehouse serving as her famous balcony.
The warring Capulets and Montagues are caught in a violent, systematic cycle, which Mullins calls “a known human tension.”
“When you take that and put it in modern history in front of that house with these bodies and voices, to me it opens up the text in a really different way.”
The venue also invites people to break out of their assumptions about theater, abandoning stuffy seats and evening gowns in favor of beers and blankets sprawled across the lawn.
“All the rituals of going to a theatre are gone,” Mullins said. “When people are just a little out of their element, and they don't quite know what to expect … they’re ready to receive something different.”
Mullins, a professor at Old Dominion University, relishes teaching a theater appreciation class that attracts non-theater majors who need a fine arts credit.
His goal is to convince young people with no theater experience to watch more plays.
He says it’s a shame that most people are forced to silently read “Romeo & Juliet” in 7th grade.
“That’s a horrible introduction.”
“When we think about theater, we think about a fancy building and a bunch of social constructs,” he said. But in the past, the audiences were rowdy and participatory, throwing rotten fruit, yelling advice to the characters and loudly enjoying the lowbrow humor of the time.
“I like to joke that Shakespeare was probably closer to WWE than what we think of as Shakespeare today.”
The show is meant to be moving and fun, neither too serious nor too intellectualized. Instead, Mullins said, it should just be experienced.
“Sometimes just sharing space with somebody and having an experience with them brings us closer together than all our ideology talk could ever do.”
The ROŪGE’s “Romeo & Juliet” runs June 12 through June 21. Audiences are encouraged to bring blankets or camping chairs. Visit ROŪGE: Theater Reinvented for tickets and more information.
