Will Call #32 — Maximum Woe: Romeo and Juliet at MCLA

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You don’t have to defy the stars to enjoy a hot date with two of literature’s most unlucky lovers, Romeo and Juliet. The eponymous tragedy, staged by the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Fine and performing and Arts Department, will run for one weekend at the Venable Theatre.

“Romeo and Juliet”

by William Shakespeare

 

November 18–21; 8:00 p.m.

MCLA Venable Theatre

Buy tickets online or at the event

$12 general admission, $5 faculty staff, alumni, non MCLA, $2 MCLA

We spoke with a four student actors:

Crysta Cheverie, Senior FPA Theatre major, Juliet
Brittany Nicholson, Senior FPA Theatre major, Nurse
Brianna McDermott, Junior FPA Theatre, Arts Management major, Lady Capulet
Alexandra Sasso, Sophomore FPA Theatre major, Princess Escalus

as well as the play’s director, Laura E. Standley, Assistant Professor, Theatre, about the unique approach this production of Romeo and Juliet takes toward dealing with, and understanding the violence that seems to propel the actions of almost every character.

Prologue

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

SPOILER ALERT: Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished.