Last summer, I saw Romeo and Juliet at The Globe Theatre. It was fresh and funny. From the unexpected music to Mercutio’s spoken word monologue, it was a new vision for a show that often suffers from tired productions. Emma Rice, the Director, who was controversially parting ways with The Globe, was on a mission. In a letter to the future Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, she stated, “I chose to leave because, as important and beloved as the Globe is to me, the Board did not love and respect me back. It did not understand what I saw, what I felt and what I created with my actors, creative teams and the audience. They began to talk of a new set of rules that I did not sign up to and could not stand by. Nothing is worth giving away my artistic freedom for, it has been too hard fought for.” In my opinion, Rice succeeded, and I will never forget what I experienced that night at The Globe.
I left the theatre feeling creatively full with ideas of future projects. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t go somewhere and create something, and as I sat in the Mexican restaurant down the strip jotting down notes, I decided to look up the cast of the show—but found myself reading some of the worst reviews I have ever seen. They called it “perverse” and “heavy-handed.” Michael Billington complained in the Guardian about the use of The Village People’s “YMCA” during one of the scenes but neglected the haunting-yet-beautiful use of Dinah Washington’s “This Bitter Earth.” He stated, “A predominantly young audience seemed happy enough but, for me, this was another example of vandalised Shakespeare.”
It became clear that this was not only an attack on Emma Rice’s rendition of Romeo and Juliet but a desperate attempt to stifle any effort to break away from the canon that has produced said tired renditions. What I had seen on stage moments before was pure art: risks, and play. It seems like the second an artist strays away from expectation, an antiquated critic is there—trying to push them into a box they never wanted to enter. Though I may enjoy a good classical portrayal of any Shakespearean play, I admire how this production bent the “rules” of traditionalism.
Some people cannot sit through a classical play to save their lives. Emma Rice has offered them a chance—a mode, a way in, a dare toward new forms of accessible. Art transforms with time. “Vandalism” becomes bricolage. Maybe remember the words of Emma Rice: “Nothing is worth giving away my artistic freedom for, it has been too hard fought for.”
—Melissa Puello, Assistant Poetry Editor