Two households, both alike in dignity, in punk-rock Berlin, where we lay our scene, Shakespeare’s classic tale of star-crossed lovers leaves courtly Verona to inhabit gritty 1980s Germany.
In the hands of director Whitney Ellis, a third-year theater student, Shakespeare at UCLA’s production of “Romeo and Juliet in Berlin” explores the play from a radical perspective.
The show will be performed in Northwest Campus Auditorium this Friday and Sunday.
“It’s set in East and West Berlin right before the fall of the wall in 1989,” Ellis explained. “The time period and location is a manifestation of many of the themes in the play.”
After she visited Berlin a couple of summers ago, Ellis drew parallels between the Capulets’ and Montagues’ rivalry and that of East and West Germany.
“I was just fascinated by the history of this really metropolitan city that was divided, and they never saw each other, as if they were completely independent of each other,” she said. “I was just thinking about “˜Romeo and Juliet,’ and it seemed like such an obvious location because of this symbolism of division and walls.”
For Ellis, a successful Shakespeare adaptation allows the audience to discover new meaning in the original text instead of detracting from it, as previous directors of “Romeo and Juliet” have done in attempting to assert their personal visions.
“The challenge for the director is to choose the location and time period that best accentuate the text itself. Some of the limitations of past adaptations were that the chosen locations and time periods were independent of the text rather than accentuated by it,” she said.
The cast and crew built a replication of the Berlin Wall for the production. The wall serves as the physical barrier between the West German Montagues and East German Capulets and was central to Ellis’ endeavour, because it generates the sense of antagonistic ideologies.
“We tried to make (the set) as realistic as possible,” she said. “The graffiti in West Berlin contrasts with the grey concrete wall of East Germany. Our set designer Starlet Jacobs created this flap system within the Berlin Wall … so we’re able to tell on which side of the wall we’re on.”
The elaborate set’s centrality to the play marks a shift away from the traditionally spare staging of previous Shakespeare at UCLA plays, because the organization seeks to increase the production value of its work. The play’s production team is comprised of theater department graduate students, whose expertise showcases the players’ talents to their best advantage.
Ellis consciously tried to resurrect the zeitgeist of ’80s Berlin in her adaptation and extensively researched the city’s subcultures.
Punk music plays an instrumental role in the play; its jarring notes reflect the anarchic unrest epitomized in Romeo and Mercutio as punk rockers. Viewing the music as a gateway to understanding the period, Ellis encouraged her cast to listen to music director Gil Kuno’s compilation of ’80s music.
“It’s all about creating a world, and it’s by having everyone familiar with the world we’re creating that we’re best able to do it as a team,” Ellis said.
Rather than based entirely on Ellis’ initial idea upon visiting Berlin, the world of the play truly materialized during the rehearsal process. The actors’ enthusiasm and willingness to be experimental in their interpretation of Shakespeare was crucial.
Eric Braun, the actor playing Romeo and a third-year philosophy student, found that acting Shakespeare within a fairly contemporary framework enabled him to engage with his character’s complex psychological states.
“When I think of my character … it’s Romeo as this West Berlin punk falling in love with this Communist East Berlin princess. It helps me understand the character’s motivations in a way in which I can fill in all the holes and emotional gaps,” he said.
While Braun used the play’s Berlin context to get into character, Lauren McMeikan, the actress playing Juliet and a third-year psychology student, drew inspiration from her long-standing desire to play the role.
“I’ve always wanted to play Juliet,” McMeikan said. “She’s such a full character. … She just changes within the course of the play.”
McMeikan views Shakespeare’s language as the primary agent in Juliet’s transformation and strives to achieve its emotional range in her performance.
Christopher Salzer, a professional documentarist who knows Ellis from her high school, is creating a documentary about the project.
The synergy of people with diverse mindsets and approaches to acting is his focus, and he frequently visited the play’s rehearsals, paying special attention to how students from various acting backgrounds dealt with the challenges they faced.
“It’s not just about Shakespeare but about the different students and their individual experiences,” he said.