Romeo and Juliet

The play contrasts the bawdy, sexual language of teenage boys (which may be physicalized onstage) with the true love that exists between Romeo and Juliet. There are several onstage deaths culminating in the double suicide of the heroes. With those cautions, the play is suitable for most middle and high school students.

The Allen Elizabethan Theatre is outfitted with an elevator for balcony seating.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. OSF offers a variety of accommodations, outlined here.

En esta trágica historia de familias combatientes y del amor juvenil, una pareja de desaventurados amantes sale al escenario bajo las estrellas y con el rico detalle de la época. Inspirado por el espejo natural de la progresión de la obra desde la luz hasta la obscuridad, Dámaso Rodríguez, Director Artístico del Artists Repertory Theatre of Portland, dirige una de las mejores historias de amor del idioma inglés. Cuando Julieta y Romeo, hijos de enemigos, se conocen en un baile desafortunado, se prende un amor puro y singular hasta que el destino y un legado de odio se vuelven arel mundo en su contra. Emily Ota (Julieta) y William Thomas Hodgson (Romeo) forman parte de un elenco grande de queridos actores de OSF en esta eterna historia de amor, odio y trágicas consecuencias.

El desarrollo de Romeo y Julieta es apoyado por una dotación de la James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation.  

Esta producción de Romeo y Julieta forma parte de Shakespeare in American Communities, programa nacional del National Endowment for the Arts en asociación con Arts Midwest.  

La obra hace contraste del idioma obsceno y sexual de los muchachos adolescentes  (lo cual puede presentarse de manera física en escena) con el verdadero amor que existe entre Romeo y Julieta. Hay varias muertes en escena, terminando en el doble suicidio de los héroes. Con estas advertencias, la obra es idónea para la mayoría de los estudiantes de secundaria y preparatoria.

El Allen Elizabethan Theatre cuenta con elevador para los asientos de balcón.

El Oregon Shakespeare Festival se compromete a la accesibilidad. Reconocemos a las necesidades de los patrones con discapacidades y nos esforzamos a asegurar que nuestras instalaciones y producciones les sean accesibles a todos. OSF ofrece una variedad de acomodaciones, aquí descritas here.

In this production, Portland-based director Dámaso Rodríguez stages the play in its Verona setting (c. 1480–1520), fully investigating the history and social context that informed the many versions of the “Romeo and Juliet” story preceding Shakespeare’s adaptation. During an OSF workshop reading, he talked about his decision to focus on the script.

 “The original text allows us to draw recognizable parallels to our present-day divisive political climate,” he said. For Rodríguez, setting the play in its original given circumstances while presenting it from a modern point of view through a consciously cast diverse and gender-balanced company of actors ensures that the reason for the feud is not interpreted as based on race or ethnicity.

Rodríguez champions engaging with bold new works, most recently Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon at Artists Repertory Theatre, where he is also artistic director. To this production of Romeo and Juliet, he brings the vision of working with a new play.

“Shakespeare’s 16th-century tragedy of young love thwarted by a community’s long-standing prejudice continues to be universally resonant and alarmingly relevant to our ever-polarized 21st-century society,” he says. “We continue to live in a world where hate and bias are taught and passed on to the subsequent generation. Shakespeare brilliantly left the reasons for the divide between Capulet and Montague unspecified, giving the play endless universal resonance.”  

Rodríguez is excited about telling this story at OSF. “This will be a contemporary company’s ritual re-telling of a centuries-old story, and we will take a cue from the opening Chorus by maintaining the convention that the actors are actively aware of and engaged with an audience that has gathered to listen.”

For Rodriguez, these choices work to magnify the emotional stakes of the play and invite audiences to lean in and listen to the lessons the play promises from the outset of the Prologue. “I’m interested in conveying to our audience a visceral understanding of the depth of the too-recognizable divisions in the play and hope to leave a sense of our society’s ironic compulsion to repeat painful mistakes that could be avoided.” 

—Tiffany Ana López

Reprinted from OSF’s 2018 Illuminations, a 64-page guide to the season’s plays. Members at the Donor level and above and teachers who bring school groups to OSF receive a free copy of Illuminations.