After attending Romeo y Julieta on February 8th I needed some time to chew on the masterpiece.. What stuck out to me and how I felt about it have been a mud puddle of different ideas. The language barrier was an interesting addition that was fun to watch and the cast did a magnificent job pulling it off. The writing of Shakespeare can be difficult to understand without two differing languages yet due to the superb acting of the cast even the Spanish were easy to understand with skills of body language and voice inflection within the context of the play. But there was something they did that really fascinated me. The use of sounds!
With a cast of only 8 members we quickly realized that the low production set was established and going back to Shakespearean times, all of the props and costumes were on stage with them. Yet, something that amazed me was the majority of background musical effects were produced by the cast. As the characters involved in the scene were onstage such as the one pictured above, the remaining cast members wouldn't leave the stage or sit aimlessly, but rather they became the tension coming from the beating of the drums or the love coming from stringed instruments.
In a play adaptation regarding a lack of communication there was at least one element that was not foreign to a multi-cultural audience and cast, sound. The tension was built up not just by the acting of the characters but the combined efforts of remaining cast members "off stage." The acting was impressive, but what might have been more impressive was the effect the "off stage" members had upon the overall tone of the play, making it not only intense but in many ways come to life! I will be forever impressed at the effort and care that they put into this small production of a dramatic classic!
Bravo BYU Young Company!
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