INTERVIEW: ‘Wherefore art thou Romeo?’ In the Catskills with Juliet.
Photo: Julio Gutierrez and Max Gallagher perform as Romeo & Juliet. Photo courtesy of Catskill Mountain Shakespeare / Provided with permission.
The Catskill Mountain Shakespeare theater company is back with its summertime explorations of the Bard’s work, and they are gearing up to open a brand-new production of the timeless classic Romeo & Juliet under a theatrical tent on Main Street in Hunter, New York. The show runs July 12-27 and is directed by Rebecca Wahls, a visiting artist from Richmond, Virginia, who has made the Catskills her home these past few weeks.
“It’s honestly excitement,” Wahls said about her anticipation for this Romeo & Juliet. “The theater is so great, which is such an amazing, unique thing to say that every single person involved with making this, whether they’re on stage or off stage, is just excellent at what they do and dedicated to their jobs. I think the only thing I’m nervous about is, gosh, I hope it doesn’t thunderstorm because it’s outside, which is new for me.”
The director described the theatrical space as a giant white tent pitched in the middle of a field. It’s tricked out with theatrical lighting and a sound system, and the audience sits on either side of the staging area, creating an alley for the actors to perform in the middle.
“And the stage itself is a long platform that goes between those two sides of the audience that has ramps at either end of it, but there are no skateboards, even though it looks like a halfpipe,” she said. “So the whole thing will feel very immersive. The audience is always going to be aware that they’re watching a play, but I think that’s a really beautiful and true-to-Shakespeare’s-original-intent way to do things, but with a modern twist of our tent and the unique seating configuration and all that stuff.”
Wahls called Romeo & Juliet the most famous story of all time, and it’s hard to argue with that assertion. On any given day, all throughout the year, there’s likely a production of Shakespeare’s classic playing somewhere. The show even made it back to Broadway this past season and sold out almost every performance.
“This is the most famous story ever, except no one actually knows what happens in it,” the director said. “Presumably everyone knows that they die at the end, and yet when we watch it, you kind of wonder if maybe they won’t this time. Or at least that’s my goal.”
The show feels particularly resonant in 2025 given that the premise for the tragic love story is based on two families that have been eternally warring against each other. It doesn’t take much effort to find parallels in today’s world.
“I think that the design between the two households, the Montagues and the Capulets, is also very timely for our 2025 summer,” Wahls said. “I’ve tried not to lean into any this-is-America-right-now elements or anything in the storytelling. We’re doing all the original Shakespeare text. We’re not slapping a time period on it. It’s not like 2025 themed or anything like that, but there’s an interesting line that the prince says right at the beginning. He comments that, ‘Three civil brawls have disturbed our streets,’ and I think that a simple interpretation of that is that these families are actively fighting each other. And they’re pulling each other into the streets, and it’s happened three times now.”
Wahls said everyone in the audience can fill in the blanks on what brawls in the streets might come to mind, but she hopes that everyone is given new perspective after watching the Montagues and Capulets.
“Every time I read it, I see something new,” she said. “And I know the cast has had the same experience. People go in with a basic preconceived notion, but there are so many surprises hidden in there. One of my favorite lines that I had never clocked before is a line that the character of the Nurse says after listening to the character of the Friar lay out a plan, a very clever plan with lots of metaphors and such in it. She just says, ‘I could have stayed here all day and listened to good counsel. Oh, what learning is.’ I just love that. These two characters who are often seen as the co-mentor characters of the Friar for Romeo and the Nurse for Juliet are actually on completely different wavelengths in terms of their type of intelligence and what they have to offer each of the young people in the play. So that was a big surprise for me.”
Wahls came to Catskill Mountain Shakespeare thanks to a mutual acquaintance. She’s currently based in Richmond, where she’ll return after opening night of the production. She recently finished a year of teaching at Duke University in North Carolina, and she’s also lived in Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.
“I was connected to these lovely people up here at Catskill Mountain Shakespeare through a cohort member of mine from grad school at Carnegie Mellon University whose entire thing is Shakespeare, Peter Andersen, who directed their production of Midsummer a few years ago,” Wahls said. “And Shakespeare is his passion, his reason for being. I love Shakespeare, but I haven’t really had the opportunity to do it for a wide variety of reasons. So I’m so, so lucky to have been connected to these people because of him.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Catskill Mountain Shakespeare’s production of Romeo & Juliet, directed by Rebecca Wahls, plays July 12-27 in Hunter, New York. Click here for more information and tickets.
