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This thesis has been approved by
The Honors Tutorial College and the Department of Theatre
Dr. William Condee
Honors Tutorial College, Director of Studies
Theatre
Thesis Advisor
Jeremy Webster
Dean, Honors Tutorial College
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URINALS, SWORDFIGHTS, AND DILDOS:
EXPERIMENTING WITH MASCULINE GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN AN
ADAPTATION OF JOE CALARCO’S ADAPTATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S
ROMEO & JULIET
A Thesis
Presented to
The Honors Tutorial College
Ohio University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for Graduation
from the Honors Tutorial College
with the degree of
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre
By
Zachary J. Kopciak
June 2011
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Table of Contents
The Question
4
The Research
10
The First Experiment
First Hypothesis
32
Control Variable
34
Independent Variables
38
Dependent Variables
41
The Second Experiment
Second Hypothesis
44
Independent Variables
48
Dependent Variables
53
The Third Experiment
Third Hypothesis
55
Independent Variables
59
Dependent Variables
70
The Conclusion
74
Works Cited
79
Appendix
82
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Chapter One: The Question
In a culture in which, according to the American Library Association, a
children’s book about the true story of two male penguins raising a chick is the most
controversial children’s book for five years in a row (ALA), in which elected officials
compare the “dangers of the homosexual lifestyle” to the health risks associated with
second-hand smoke (qtd. in Keyes), and some private universities in the US are
threatening their students with expulsion because of their homosexual behavior (“H.U.
Queer Press”), it should come as little surprise that a young, moderately intelligent
man with homosexual desires growing up in America today would have difficulty
understanding his personal gender and sexual identity.
When it came time to choose a project for my thesis, I knew that I wanted to
explore the conundrums I faced on my way out of the closet. I found an excellent
platform for such an exploration in Joe Calarco's adaptation of William Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet, entitled Shakespeare’s R&J. The adaptation centers on four
Catholic schoolboys as they perform Shakespeare's play. The main source of tension
in the play arises from the parallels that emerge between the forbidden love of Romeo
and Juliet and the romance that develops between the two male students who play the
iconic characters. The productions of the play occurred on February 27, 28, and March
1, 2011 in the basement of Clippinger Laboratories at Ohio University. Reaching the
point of production, however, was an intricate and challenging process, as this thesis
will describe in detail.
I secured the help of Dr. Jordan Schildcrout, head of the Theater Criticism
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Program at Ohio University, to guide me through the research portion on the project.
Professor Rebecca Vernooy, my movement professor, with whom I had already
worked with on several projects, agreed to advise the rehearsal process. Sarah
Stevens, a senior women's and gender studies and theatre major and close friend,
helped me comprehend the research, and helped me communicate these ideas to the
cast; I called her my “gender consultant.” In the spring, Dr. William Condee
supervised the writing of this thesis.
I did not want this production to be a platform to simply decry and warn
against the evils of homophobia, nor did I want to tell a standard gay Bildungsroman
in which the closeted main character finally finds the strength to leave the closet after
a romantic encounter with another queer boy. Though there is merit in such projects, I
wanted to use this project as an opportunity to better understand the complex
relationship between masculinity and homosexuality in this country. I wanted to see
what would happen when male homosexuality interacts with normative western ideas
and narratives regarding masculinity in order to better understand homosexuality and
masculinity, both of which have been influential in my life.
I determined that to accomplish this exploration within a theatrical context, I
could not approach this project the way I would have approached a standard
production. Most theatrical productions subscribe to the “cultural mindset that
interprets artwork as a final product” (Dunderjerovic 27). With this production,
however, I wanted to evoke the work of director and theatrical theorist Robert Lepage,
who thought of theatre more as a “process of becoming, where in fact no one knows
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the final destination or how to get there” (Dunderjerovic 27). Such theatre allows
“directors to emphasize imagery, both physical and visual, and personal experiences
over language, local milieu, and… socio-political circumstances” (Dunderjerovic 28).
In other words, I wanted to experiment.
I wanted to emphasize to the audience that this project was an experiment in
gender and sexual performance rather than a conventional play, so I decided to set the
performance in a non-conventional theatrical space, specifically, a science laboratory.
I hoped that by setting the performance in an unconventional space, I would be
reminding the audience that this performance was meant to evoke what Aleksandar
Dundkerovic calls Lepage’s “raw, adaptable, unstructured, loose, actor-centered
performances that adapt and transform a narrative to accommodate various audiences
and circumstances” (Dundjerovic 25). I hoped to emphasize that both the performers
and the schoolboys they portray are experimenting with issues of gender and sexuality
in an attempt to discover something about themselves and their identity. The sterile
and bleak laboratory setting would serve to restrict the actors and the schoolboys in
similar ways to the de-individualizing processes of social pressures and expectations.
The space would be as cold and unsympathetic as the forces the four schoolboys must
overcome in order to look deeply and truthfully at their desires, their behavior, and
ultimately, their identity.
The use of a laboratory as a theatrical space to achieve the above goals is
reminiscent of Bertolt Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt. Brecht, a German theatrical
theorist and playwright of the mid-twentieth century, believed fervently that the social,
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political, and economic struggles of contemporary humans could and should be the
subject of the theatre, whether the play is modern or classical (Brecht, Theatre of
Learning 26). According to Brecht, the “V-effect”
consists in turning the object of which one is to be made aware ... from
something ordinary, familiar, immediately accessible, into something
peculiar, striking, and unexpected.... Before familiarity can turn into
awareness the familiar must be stripped of its inconspicuousness; we
must give up assuming that the object in question needs no explanation.
(“On Theatre” 143-44)
By forcing the audience to perceive objects and situations that may have previously
taken for granted in a new way, Brecht hoped to show the audience that the conditions
in which they and the characters in the play exist have the potential to change. By
using a space that the audience would associate with science, rather than theatre, I
hoped they would associate the performance with the typically analytic and objective
pursuit of science, as opposed to the emotional and subjective connotation of the
theatre. In doing so, the audience might think more critically about how the four
schoolboys function in and around the world of Romeo and Juliet, and thus pay closer
attention to how the constructs of gender and sexuality are – to borrow a chemistry
term – reacting with each other and the script.
I approached this entire project as if it were an experiment. It seemed only
logical, therefore, to structure this thesis around the scientific method as well. In the
scientific method, there are six steps to the pursuit of knowledge. To begin, a question
must be asked. Then research is done in fields that pertain to the question. Afterwards,
a hypothesis, or a possible outcome, is postulated, followed by an experiment that tests
the validity of the hypothesis. An experiment consists of three kinds of variables. The
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independent variables are the conditions in the experiment that are being changed or
altered; the control variable is the condition that remains the same as other properties
of the experiment are changed and adapted; and the dependent variable is the aspect of
the experiment that changes as a result of the independent and control variables. In
my experimental production, the independent variables consist of elements such as the
gender of the actors playing Shakespeare's characters, the setting of the production in
an unconventional space, etc. while the control variable is Shakespeare's characters,
story, and script, which both Calarco and I adapted to suit our needs. The dependent
variable is the audience’s reaction to and perception of gender and sexuality as a result
of watching the performance. If the hypothesis is proven viable by the experiment,
then a conclusion can be drawn. If not, a new hypothesis must be created, and a new
experiment must be performed in order to test it until a provable hypothesis is reached.
Using the scientific method as a structure for writing about an artistic
production, even an experimental one, is imperfect. For instance, my personal journey
through and out of the closet did not seem to have a place in the objective nature of the
background research necessitated by the scientific method. I have therefore reappropriated the “transgendered writing style” of transgender theorist and performer
Kate Bornstein who believes that her writing style is like her identity: “based on
collage” (Bornstein 3). I have indicated when I feel that my personal narrative in
dealing with issues of gender and sexuality is relevant to the narrative of my
exploration of these themes in Romeo and Juliet by italicizing the text, “sort of a cutand-paste thing” (Bornstein 3). My artistic process, however, was one of constant
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testing and revision. The form of posing a hypothesis and creating a new one when
the previous hypothesis failed is therefore conducive with the chronology of my
process and journey as I attempted to dramatize what I have learned about my and
other's gender and sexuality over the years.
Inspired by the scientific method, this thesis is divided into six chapters. “The
Question” introduces my project. “The Research” consists of both the theoretical
research I did in preparation for writing this thesis, as well as my own personal
experiences growing up in the closet, and how these experiences have informed my
understandings of gender and sexuality. “The Experiments,” numbers one, two, and
three, describe the three hypotheses I tested over the course of the production, as well
as the variables associated with each experiment. Finally “The Conclusion” describes
the conclusions I reached as a result of spending a year using the theatre to experiment
with issues of gender and sexual identity. To begin, therefore, I must ask a question:
How does a young gay man growing up in twenty-first century America come to terms
with his identity in a culture dominated by compulsory heterosexuality and
heterosexual narratives?
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Chapter Two: The Research
In the preface of her book Gender Trouble, renowned gender and identity
theorist Judith Butler poses the following rhetorical questions, which I believe
effectively summarize the theoretical groundwork from which my production evolved:
How does language itself produce the fictive construction of “sex” that
supports [compulsory heterosexuality and phallogocentrism]?...Within
a language of presumptive heterosexuality, what sorts of continuities
are assumed to exist among sex, gender, and desire?... What kinds of
cultural practices produce subversive discontinuity and dissonance
among sex, gender, and desire and call into question their alleged
relations? (xi)
According to Butler, language functions as the unconscious and self-naturalizing
“epistemic/ontological regime” on which our society enforces its rules and
assumptions about gender and sexuality (x). She also sets up the idea of “sex,” here
used intentionally generally to imply both gender and sexuality, as being a “fictive
construction,” meaning that gender and sexual orientation are created by a society, and
then falsely presumed to be natural. Two presumptions in particular are especially
dangerous for Butler: compulsory heterosexuality, or the cultural obligation to
participate in heterosexual and reproductive sexuality; and phallogocentrism, or the
supremacy of the male signifier (the phallus) in political, social, and theoretical gender
discourse. Because gender and sexuality are constructed by a society, it is therefore
possible to deconstruct them as well. Butler asks what in a culture subverts
presumptions about “sex, gender, and desire” (xi), thus deconstructing these
presumptions by calling into question the naturalness of a societies assumptions about
the ways in which constructs like gender and sexuality relate and are related to one
another.
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I came to understand the reason I had so much difficulty with gender and
sexual identity. These constructions need to be deconstructed, because both gender
and sexual orientation are binaries, and, like all binaries, both sides are not created
equal. Gender and sexual orientation function as class systems, in which one pole
oppresses and subverts the will of the other (Bornstein 106). Cheshire Calhoun, a
feminist theorist, describes the three stipulations for oppression of a social minority:
“Oppression depends on cultural articulation of basic historical social identities that
are taken to be: a) immutable features of a person b) determinative of psychological,
moral, intellectual physical capabilities c) in polar opposition to the other [dominant]
identity” (5). In order to end the oppression, therefore, divisions between the poles of
a binary must be shown to be mutable and changeable, rather than natural. The
divisions between the poles must be shown to have no bearing on psychological,
moral, intellectual, and/or physical capabilities. Most important, liberators must
demonstrate that the poles are not polar at all, but separated only by the two groups’
acceptance of the notion that they are separate. In short, “the idea of gender itself
must go away before there can be gender equality” (Bornstein 114). This is easier said
than done, however, because class systems like gender create privilege for the
oppressing class. Because the benefits of privilege produce vested interest in
preserving the system, dismantling the system is difficult (Calhoun 5).
Deconstructing gender and sexual orientation are also difficult because both
constructs have become integral to an individual's identity in this culture. Anything
that undermines confidence in the classifications on which people base their lives
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sickens them, because it threatens their whole cognitive system (Bornstein 72). It is
also, therefore, imperative to understand how one comes to identify as a particular
subgroup, in order to facilitate the deconstruction of the identity-structure with which
the individual has identified. An individual’s identity has two sides: one that looks
inward at what the individual hopes and desires, and the other that looks outward at
how the external world perceives the individual. An individual’s perception of his or
her identity, or ego, is the result of combining these two identifying processes (Kahn
3). In order to bring about the end of gender and sexual orientation, and thus to bring
about equality, both processes, the individualizing and minoritizing inward process
and the universalizing outward process, must be addressed, explored, and
deconstructed.
The first scholar to explicitly theorize that gender is a social construct, rather
than a naturally occurring state of existence was likely Gayle Rubin in 1975 (Vance
38). As Butler explains, “gender is the cultural meanings the sexed body assumes”
(6), meaning that gender, or what we understand as male and female, is a collection of
assumptions and expectations that a culture makes about a body or individual based on
what a society perceives the individuals sex to be. Similarly, Eve Sedgwick, a notable
queer theorist, argues that, gender is the cultural implications of biological sex
(Epistemology of the Closet 27). But then what is sex? Bornstein argues that sexual
assignment “is phallocentric and genital” (22), meaning that what determines one's
biological sex -- at least as far as society at large is concerned -- is the penis. One is a
man because one has a penis; one is a woman because one does not have a penis,
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hence the presence or absence of a penis is considered the “primary” gender signifier
(Bornstein 26, 56). Other biological signifiers of sex in western discourse include
secondary gender signifiers (such as breasts for women), hormone levels, and
chromosomal composition (Bornstein 56).
Bornstein argues that there exists in western cultural a “false supremacy” of
biological gender or sex (30). Butler argues that “the distinction between gender and
sex is not a distinction at all” (7). By separating gender and sex into two distinct
categories, where one is a socially constructed cultural identity and the other is a
biological fact, it must be assumed that there is something essential and immutable
about the difference between men and women. Butler, and especially Bornstein, point
out, however, that this assumption is ludicrous, because biological gender can be as
inconstant as its supposed cultural counterpart.
Sexual androgyny exists in a higher percentage of the human population than
might be expected. For instance, there are many who live with both male and female
genitalia. Likewise, Bornstein is living proof that science has given many the ability
to choose their genitalia (Bornstein 56). Genitalia, therefore, cannot be an essential
gender determinant because it is something that is either inconstant from person to
person, or, given the right resources, can be changed. Some may counter that it is the
reproductive function of the genitalia, rather than simply the presence of genderspecific genitals, that is a determinant. Bornstein argues that “many women are born
without this [reproductive] potential, and every woman ceases to possess that
capability after menopause… what if your sperm count is low… are you then a
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woman?” (56-57).
Bornstein elaborates on the impossibility of an essential biological gender, or
sex, by asking the question: How else might we determine sex, if not by genitalia?
Are hormones a way to tell whether someone is biologically male or female?
Unfortunately this does not work for the same reasons as using genitalia as a
determinate. Because levels of testosterone and estrogen vary widely among people,
and because there are far too many men with high estrogen and women with high
testosterone, “the universal key to gender is not hormones” (56). Bornstein also takes
hormone-therapy as part of her transformation into a woman, further negating the
argument that hormone levels are immutable or essential. Perhaps genetics, the great
natural determinate, can help sort out who is man and who is woman. Again,
Bornstein points out that if genetics are a gender determinant, individuals with XXY,
XXX, YYY, XYY, and XO chromosomes are neither male nor female, meaning “there
are more than two genders” (56). Bornstein argues that to use the term “sex”
insinuates the false assumption that there is something scientifically essential to the
distinction between male and female (30). Therefore, she argues that “Sex is fucking,
gender is everything else” (116).
Unlike many in my position who “always knew I was different” (“I’m From
Driftwood”), I felt extremely normal growing up. I was always very short and was
raised Jewish, both of which sometimes set me apart, but that I liked playing with
Barbie dolls, dressing up in my mom’s old dresses and jewelry, or pretending to be a
girl while cuddling with a male friend of mine in dark corners of our homes never
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struck me as queer, in any sense of the word. Granted, I did somehow know not to
share such behavior with the world at large (to this day almost no one knows about me
cuddling with my friend... I guess until now), but I never felt as though this behavior
was unusual or morally compromising, at least at the time.
Butler argues that gender is a verb, not a noun (25). Gender is something that
one does, a series of postures and gestures (Solomon 34), rather than something
someone is. In this way, gender becomes performative, where hegemonic ideals about
the ways in which different people ought to behave become naturalized and mandated.
Similar to Plato's world of Ideals, I began to see male and female as intangible
idealizations of how humans should behave. One cannot be male or female; rather,
one strives to become male or female one’s entire life through the performance of
culturally sanctioned postures and gestures.
There are ample anthropological examples to support this claim. Though
nearly every culture prescribes individuals a gender at birth, full realization of that
gender “is trans-culturally something to be acquired or earned” (Bhabha 72). The
Jewish faith mandates a Bar Mitzvah, a ceremony wherein a young boy studies the
Torah in preparation for being accepted into the community as an adult man. In
contemporary America, one often hears the saying “becoming a man” when describing
a young boy's first sexual encounter or some other milestone of experience. In all of
these cases, and infinitely more just like them, we see that a man is not born, but
made, by putting the boy through a gauntlet or test (Garber 93).
There are, therefore, “as many experiences of gender as there are people who
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think they have a gender” (Bornstein 8), which means that “there is no reason to
assume genders remain as two” (Butler 6). One cannot ever truly be a man or a
woman, because everyone's performance of gender is slightly different: We all
negotiate the various assumptions and expectations of gender differently. There is
empirical evidence to support such ideas. Sarah Bem, a sociologist, ran an experiment
in which people were asked to describe themselves with a list of adjectives. They were
then given a separate list of adjectives and asked to sort the words into two categories:
masculine and feminine. The experiment found that scoring high “masculine” traits
did not predict low “feminine” traits, and vice versa. This experiment is evidence not
only that one cannot be truly masculine or feminine, but also that masculine and
feminine are not polar, but independently variable constructs that often overlap and
contradict each other (Sedgwick, “Gosh Boy George” 15-16). Indeed when one uses
the word masculine or feminine as a descriptive term, one is not merely referring to
biological gender, one is conflating an entire matrix of binary traits into the terms male
and female. When one is “male” there is typically an assumption that one is also
top/dominant/sadist as opposed to female/bottom/submissive/masochist (Bornstein
34).
That gender is not the strict binary western culture understands is to be does
not mean that gender is not “real” or “authentic.” Instead “culture consolidates and
augments the hegemony of gender through self-naturalization” (Butler 32). Gender
certainly exists in our society. The point of arguments like those of Butler and
Bornstein is not to deny the existence of gender, but rather to make the case that a
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person’s gender is not a concrete and natural fact, but the result of a cultural
expectation to perform specific behaviors based on hegemonic ideals that are often
conflicting and impossible to fully achieve. Therefore, just because the construct of
gender does exist does not mean it must exist.
Bornstein attempts to explain why cultures began enforcing gender roles when
she writes that gender is a system, while reproductive sex is its function (31). Gender,
by this definition, is a process whose purpose is sex, or more specifically, sexual
reproduction. Butler would agree with this basic idea, however she would not approve
of the phrasing of the definition, because it still implies that sexual reproduction
originates out of gender. According to Butler, reproductive sexuality proceeded
gender (23).
In sexual reproduction, two complementary gametes (typically a sperm and an
egg) are needed in order to create the next generation. The same individual, however,
rarely carries both complementary gametes. Angus John Bateman, an influential
geneticist, theorized that all differences between males and females in a species
emerge from the difference in energy required to produce and distribute their
respective gamete, however his theory has been largely disproven because there are
simply too many exceptions to his theory for it to be considered a rule (Dewsbury).
Though many in the scientific community now disregard Bateman’s Principle, it does
hold some bearing on human interaction.
Even though Bornstein's definition of gender is not incorrect, a better way to
look at it is that gender emerged out of the politics of power surrounding the binary
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nature of sexual reproduction. Accordingly Butler postulates that “male” and
“female” only exist in the heterosexual matrix, a system in which reproduction is the
end goal of sexual relations (111).
During my middle school years, I also began looking at pornographic
material. Though it had started with Victoria's Secret catalogues, somehow (and
truthfully I do not know exactly when or how it happened) by high school, I had begun
clicking on the “gay” button in online porn clip databases. I did not think anything of
this, however. I knew not to tell anyone about it, but I never considered that the
behavior might somehow reflect something deeper or essential about me. I had a
girlfriend for a time, and continued to have crushes on girls in my classes. I
remember the exact moment I first questioned my sexuality: a choir trip my freshman
year of high school.
On the choir trip, I met a boy from another school who was very nice to me,
and we quickly became friends. Given my insecurities about my body at that time, I
was only flattered when a mutual friend of ours informed me, “You know he’s gay
right? He likes you!” I think I was aware that he was and that he was flirting with me.
It was not, however, immediately apparent to me that this information was at all
significant. It was not until the bus ride home that I started to make connections. He
liked boys, and was gay. I liked watching naked boys, so… was I gay too? The
implications were horrifying, and in many ways too far-reaching for me to fully
comprehend at the time.
The reproductive nature of gender complicates contemporary assumptions
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about gender because not all individuals in our culture participate in reproductive sex.
Butler clarifies the origins of gender by agreeing with Rubin that “gender is merely a
function of compulsory heterosexuality, and... without that compulsory status, the field
of bodies would no longer be marked in gendered terms” (75). Homosexuality, then,
disrupts the gender binary by ignoring the power relations that emerge out of
compulsory reproductive sexuality (Butler 26). Indeed Michel Foucault, an influential
philosopher and historian, believed that the perceived danger of homosexuality has
less to do with sodomy and more to do with gender ambiguity (43). The real problem
with homosexuality is not that homosexual behavior is immoral or unnatural, but
rather that it threatens a complex power structure that has existed since prehistory,
whereby one group (men) have come to dominate another group (women) through
justifications based on the differences in each group's role in sexual reproduction. By
pulling one's self out of the matrix of sexual reproduction, one no longer needs to
abide by the rules that emanate from that matrix (i.e. gender), thereby proving that
emancipation from the power structure of gender is possible.
This potential for emancipation requires that someone remove himself or
herself fully from the reproductive system of compulsory heterosexuality.
Homosexual behavior has existed as long as heterosexual behavior has existed,
perhaps most famously with the ancient Greeks (Sedgwick, Between Men 4), though
abstaining completely from reproductive sex in favor of exclusive homosexual
behavior is a recent development. The “Molly Houses” of Early Modern England
were the first known communities of individuals who participated in or preferred
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homosexual behavior (in this case, men) began to form (Jagose 12). It was not until
the turn of the twentieth century that the term “homosexual,” at least as a way of
describing a distinct group of people, entered public lexicon (Sedgwick, Epistemology
2). Alan Sinfield argues that “the [gay] man as we know him is a consequence of the
[trials of Oscar Wilde in the late nineteenth centry]” (32). According to Sinfeld, it was
during the trials that “the entire, vaguely disconcerting nexus of effeminacy, leisure,
idleness, immorality, luxury, insouciance, decadence and aestheticism, which Wilde
was perceived as instantiating, was transformed into a brilliantly precise image: the
[homosexual man]” (28).
The term “heterosexual” soon followed, and a new binary identity-structure,
what we call “sexual orientation,” soon followed. As Sedgwick explain:
every given person, just as he or she was necessarily assignable to a
male or female gender, was now considered necessarily assignable to a
homo- or hetero-sexuality, a binarized identity that was full of
implications, however confusing, for even the ostensibly least sexual
aspects of personal experience (Epistemology 2)
As Foucault wrote, “The Homosexual is now a species” (43).
The next year the same choirboy transferred to my school. While walking
down the hall with him one day we were passed by two older male students who
shouted at him (and me because I was with him) “fag” as they walked by. The hate
and danger in their voices is something I will never forget. To this day, I do not know
whether I was more afraid that they would try to harm me for thinking I was gay, or
that they might be right in thinking so. I did not want either to be the case, so I
quickly rationalized my way out of a precarious psychological position. I convinced
myself that I was not gay. Rather I was jealous of the physique of these handsome
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men. My interest in them was not sexual as much as the result of a desire to look like
them. The power of denial is truly profound, because I managed to maintain this
rationale for some time.
As I matured I eventually came to the conclusion that mere envy could not
explain my attraction to attractive men. Like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of
grief, I abandoned denial and began to bargain. I began making all kinds of
agreements with myself and with God, anyone that I thought might be able to help me
with my potentially catastrophic problem. One rule I made for myself was that I was
not to have homosexual thoughts while inside the walls of my school. There were days
when I would be thinking about a hot classmate on my way to school and would force
myself to think about something else as I walked through the doorway of the building.
I made more resolutions than I can count: New Year’s resolutions, Jewish New Year’s
resolutions, Spring Equinox resolutions, birthday resolutions, I-had-a-weirdconversation-with-my-mother-today resolutions, etc. Some I made to God, and some
just to myself. I would vow that from that point on, I would stop fantasizing about
men. I was straight, or at least I wanted to be with every fiber of my being (except of
course for the couple that kept perking up every time I watched a movie where Brad
Pitt took his shirt off). If it is not obvious from the number of resolutions I made, none
of these promises were successful.
After bargaining failed, I entered the stages of anger and depression
simultaneously. I remained in this stage through the latter half of high school and the
early portion of my college years. I was depressed during this period because of the
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stress of graduating from high school and not getting into my first choice of colleges.
In retrospect, however, it is clear that hiding in the closet was a major reason for my
general unhappiness. I had come to the conclusion that I was not straight, which in
and of itself was terrifying. I told myself, however, that I was not gay, but bisexual,
and that being bisexual did not necessitate sacrificing the storybook romance I always
wanted, nor did it require me to tell anyone about the dark side of my desires: after
all, it might just be a phase.
Cognitive dissonance always arises when one lies to a person face to face.
Half of the mind thinks that, for whatever reason, the lie is the best or safest option
available, but the other half balks at having to suppress the truth. This internal
conflict is very similar to the closet, except that the sensation of the mind being split in
two is a constant. No matter whom I talked to, or what we talked about, there were
always several moments where I would have to stop myself from saying or doing
something incriminating. Keeping my secret became a full-time and exhausting job for
me, but I preferred the exhaustion to the moments of panic when I feared I had been
found out.
For those who do not understand this feeling, I like to use the example of
writing left-handed. I am left-handed, and have always hated writing with pencils
because as I move my hand from left to right across the page as I write, my left hand
turns silver from the lead of the pencil. Right-handed people always get a kick out of
hearing my hatred of pencils, because writing was always clean and easy for them. It
never even occurs to them that the simple act of writing can be so different for
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someone else just because he or she uses a different hand. The same is true of living
in the closet. It is hard to appreciate how tailored the world is to being heterosexual
unless one is not heterosexual, and as a result, unable to fully relate to those around
him or her. Watching movies was always stressful, because I would always find myself
looking at the male leads, but would have to report on which female leads I found
attractive when my friends, family, and I discussed the movie later. Even classes like
history and biology could become awkward if issues of reproduction came up, because
it was a possibility that I might not have children of my own. These anxieties (on top
of all the other typical stresses of adolescence) make for a very, very confusing and
emotionally tumultuous time.
I did not want to come out just because I did not want to be gay and assume all
the baggage associated with that identity. I did not want to come out because I was
afraid that, by declaring myself as gay, I would be forever swearing off romantic
relations with women. I had begun my sexual career with the lovely ladies of
Victoria's Secret, and at the end of my senior year, I had a brief but completely
authentic relationship with a young woman in my class. If I were to declare myself as
gay, I worried that people, including and especially my family, would assume I was a
purse-toting, lip-gloss-and-pink-lace-wearing fairy princess. That was not something
I wanted to be perceived as, because that is not something I was. As a side note, I
have since come to realize that there is nothing wrong with gay men who act
femininely in this way. At the time, I was rather homophobic because I was still afraid
of my feelings and myself. I now rather enjoy nice lip-gloss from time to time, and
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have become an admirer of purses, though I still do not own one myself. To put it
simply, I feared that by declaring myself as gay, I would have to sacrifice my
masculinity.
Calhoun observes that “homosexuality is culturally read as a failure to be a
'real' man or woman” (18). There exists a prevalent fear among gay men of being
coded as “effeminate, or worse, a woman” (Garber 137). This fear is not, however,
unique to gay men. Richard Friedman argues that male self-worth, regardless of
sexuality, is dependent on “masculine self-regard” (19).
The crisis of masculine self-regard can be seen in the legal history of the
“homosexual panic” criminal defense strategy. “Homosexual panic” as a criminal
defense strategy has been used in cases where a “straight” man claims that an attack
on a “gay” man, or a man he perceived to be flirting with him, was a form of selfdefense, specifically a defense of his masculinity. This defense implies that the
assailant was insecure in his sexuality/masculinity (Sedgwick, Epistemology 20).
Bornstein elaborates on the implications of a straight man's masculine insecurity when
approached by a gay man by saying that “his revulsion can be seen not as a sign of his
being revolted, but as an admission of his desire” (75). The violence is not a reaction
to the sexuality of the victim, but a reaction against what the assailant perceives to be a
lapse in his own masculinity. According to Sedgwick, the success of this defense on
multiple occasions implies also that most men are insecure about their
sexuality/masculinity. Moreover, the defense of this insecure masculinity is so
profoundly essential to a man's wellbeing that a man may be excused of “diminished
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moral responsibility” if it is threatened (Epistemology 20). If homophobia among men
is actually the result of men's fear of being perceived as feminine or a woman, we can
also draw the conclusion that “homophobia by men toward men is misogynistic”
(Sedgwick, Between Men 20).
When I got to college, I began telling people that I was bisexual when they
inevitably asked whether I was straight or gay. Most people, myself included, had a
hard time believing this. On one occasion, a group of fellow freshmen were waiting
for class to start. They began playing the “whose team are you on” game, where
people declare themselves as gay, straight, or “bat for both teams,” meaning bisexual.
I was sitting apart from the group of students playing this game, so rather than ask
which “team” I play for, one openly gay student looked at me, then at another
flamboyantly gay student, and pantomimed the opening of a door while making
squeaking sounds while laughing with a little too much air of superiority. The
charade was supposed to imply that I needed to come out of the closet. I was both
offended and mortified.
I wondered at my peer’s arrogance in assuming I was still in the closet simply
because I was not as outspoken as he was, or because I did not carry around a purse,
which his friend was notorious for carrying around. Though I had not yet openly
announced to the world I was gay, I readily admitted to anyone who asked that I was
not straight. I felt pressured to make a decision about something that I did not think
required any decision making. I wanted to be attracted to someone, and have a
relationship with that person. If it was a woman, so be it. If it was a man, I was
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becoming more comfortable with the idea every day. I saw the declaration of my
sexuality as a restrictive oversimplification of a very complex and free-flowing
amalgamation of desires I had only just begun to understand.
Even the ways in which society distinguishes homosexuals from the rest of the
population demonstrates the fluctuating nature of the cultural perceptions and
understandings of sexual orientation. Red neckties in the 1990's were a symbol of
masculinity and power for politicians, anchormen, lawyers, and other influential
figures in the public eye. In the early twentieth century, however, red proclaimed
homosexuality, as wearing a red tie was a way homosexual men recognized one
another (Garber 2). If signifiers of an identity (in this case homosexuality) are so
unstable, even contradictory, the identity being signified must likewise implicitly be in
constant flux, and therefore unstable.
Even though prior to the turn of the twentieth century western societies had no
concept of sexual identity or orientation, and despite the inconsistent nature of
signifiers of orientation, the “institutionalized taxonomic discourses -- medical, legal,
literary, psychological – centering on homo/heterosexual definition proliferated and
crystalized… around the turn of the century” (Sedgwick, Epistemology 2), and have
remained fairly constant since. It was not until the mid-1990's that Jeffery Weeks
would make the distinction between sexual behavior from sexual identity (Vance 40).
After roughly a century of cultural amnesia in which the relationship between sexual
activity and the way one identifies one's self became conflated, western society is only
just beginning to understand that sexual behavior does not necessitate identity.
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The separation of behavior and identity, logical as it may be, carries serious
implications regarding gay identity and the gay community. Chief among these is that
if homosexual behavior does not categorically imply sexual identity, then to identify as
“gay” is a choice (Sedgwick, Epistemology 27). This does not mean that homosexual
desire is a choice. Rather the choice lies in whether an individual accepts that
homosexual desire is integral to her or his identity, both personal and public. Like
gender, homosexual identity is performative: “I’m out, therefore I am” (Sedgwick,
Epistemology 4). It is not simply the decision to perform homosexual identity that
makes one gay, however, because “to identify as must always include multiple
processes of identifying with” (Sedgwick, Epistemology 61). This means that in order
to identify as homosexual, one must also identify with other people who have
identified themselves as homosexual.
In the early stages of the Gay Rights Movement, which began in 1969 with the
Stonewall Riots, the goal was to break down restrictive ideas about sexuality and
embrace a more universalizing view of sexuality that allowed people to behave
according to their desires, regardless of how one identified. As the movement changed
from opposition to assimilation, however, the movement became more about
protecting the rights of a specific minority: those with a gay identity. The result is that
a universalizing movement with the “potential [for liberation] for all” became a
minoritizing crusade for a few, distinct communities (Jagose 59-61). Gay identity,
similar to the movement that represents it, has itself become problematic in the way
that those who identify as gay make themselves out to be a distinct minority. Like the
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heterosexual majority, many in the gay community accept that if one has homosexual
desires or participates in homosexual behavior, one is a homosexual, or gay. From the
notion that one's sexual behavior is essential to one's identity comes the idea that this
sexual identity is significant to aspects of one's life outside the realm of sex.
The term “queer” has become a reaction against the confining term “gay”
(Jagose 76). Queer is becoming a term to describe individuals who do not participate
in normative gender identities or heterosexual orientations, but do not necessarily
identify with the minoritizing mentality of the gay identity. The queer identity
attempts to return to the universalizing origins of the Gay Rights Movement, making it
possible for someone to identify as queer and gay at the same time, “depending on
one's goals” (Jagose 126). One of the goals of the queer movement is to eliminate
“the stigma of being gay [which emerged] from a century of constructing the identities
of 'homosexuals' as types of persons whose deviances are not limited to sexual object
choice” (Calhoun 1).
The relationship between sexual orientation and “object choice,” or the gender
of the object of one’s sexual and romantic desires, has been a curious issue for many
theorists: “Of the many dimensions of genital activity one can be differentiated from,
gender of sexual object determines sexual orientation” (Sedgwick, Epistemology 8).
But as Bornstein points out, “there is more to [the act of] sex than gender” (35).
Factors such as age, race, class, hair, fetishes, size, use of props and toys, bondage,
and pain all factor into our decisions and experiences of sexual desire.
In the end, I decided that life would just be easier if I caved to society’s need
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for me to label myself as something, so that they could better digest and understand
me. I realized that, on some level, my insistence on my attraction to women was a
vestigial appendage of a life I once wanted, and not the result of a desire I had to
make a life with a woman. If I met a woman to whom I was attracted, there would be
nothing to stop me from pursuing a relationship with her, least of all a label like
“gay.” Over the course of my junior year of college, I came out of the closet as gay to
my immediate family. While this was tumultuous at times, I can say with absolutely no
reservations that after coming out, I am more confident and happy than I have ever
been since first questioning my sexuality.
The issue of gender identity in homophobia clearly indicates a subtle and
complex relationship between gender and sexuality. Therefore the idea of gender must
be made “permanently problematic” in order to dismantle the structures of gender and
sexual orientation (Butler 128), for both binaries justify and propagate each other.
Bornstein believes that true gender freedom begins with fun and play (87). Marjorie
Garber believes that “cross-dressing is a necessary critique on binary thinking” (10),
because the act of cross-dressing demonstrates that the essential nature of gender is a
social construct (12). One's “submission to dress codes signifies your acceptance of
your position in the hierarchy” (Garber 22). Therefore to reject the dress code of one's
gender is to reject other roles and restrictions placed on an individual as a result of her
or his gender identity.
Both transvestitism (transition in gender through dress, behavior, and other
secondary signifiers of gender) and transsexuality (transition in gender through
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physical alteration to the genitalia and other primary signifiers of gender, as well as
through secondary gender signifiers) show that movement and play between genders
and sexual orientations is possible. While gender divisions are vigorously defended
throughout time and across cultures, there is also a poplar fascination with gender
ambiguity throughout time and across cultures (Bornstein 11). Though a culture may
disapprove of such behavior, the sense of freedom and fun that comes with gender
ambiguity or transitioning is no less intriguing.
When thinking about such practices, there is a “consistent desire to look at the
transvestite as male or female performance” rather than as a disruption of the
aforementioned binary (Garber 10). This tendency “to look through, rather than at the
cross-dresser” denies the true nature of the gender play, and my production of R&J's
potential for change (Garber 9). It is not the man becoming a woman, or a woman
becoming a man that is attractive, but the act of transitioning itself (Garber 8). The
transvestite or transsexual becomes a third sex, “a sex apart, which has yet no name”
(Garber 11). This third, or other, is what really fascinates people. In a world of
binaries, “the third is a mode of articulation, describing a space of possibility” (Garber
11).
Rather than fully condone the gender play that so fascinates a culture, societies
allow the play to continue by calling attention to the performative nature of the gender
transition. Theatre is the performance of identity that is acknowledged as performance
(Bornstein 147). Actors may break many of a culture's most sacred customs because
actors are by definition pretending to be something they are obviously not. In
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Medieval and Renaissance England, where the breaking of sumptuary laws was a very
serious offense, “actors were allowed to break sumptuary laws on the safe space of the
stage” (Garber 35). The stage is a safe space because it is not real, the audience is
asked to accept (briefly) the conventions of the world, not to believe them (Solomon
37). Theatre, then, is the perfect arena for exploring and deconstructing the fiercely
protected naturalism of gender and sexuality.
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Chapter Three: The First Experiment
Hypothesis #1: If I cast four men to play all seventeen parts in Romeo and Juliet, then
the lines between homosocial and homosexual bonding will be blurred, if not
deconstructed altogether.
The first time I read Calarco's adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, I knew that it
had the potential to facilitate my exploration of my questions and problems regarding
masculine gender and sexual orientation. In Calarco’s adaptation, four boys in an allboys Catholic school find and begin to perform Romeo and Juliet. Student #1 is slated
to play Romeo, Student #2 Benvolio and Juliet, Student #3 Mercutio, Lady Capulet,
and Friar Laurence, and Student #4 Tybalt, and the Nurse (as I adapted and cut
Calarco's script, I also gave Student #4 the parts of Lord Capulet and the Apothecary).
Calarco split the Prince and Lord Capulet’s lines up in a choral-like way
among all the students. I believe his reasoning was to use those who wield power in
Shakespeare’s play to represent the plural forces of culture, family, politics, science,
etc., that restrict free gender and sexual expression in the world outside the play.
Pressure to repress homosexual desire comes from a seemingly infinite number of
directions, through a multitude of cultural and societal mediums. Because all the
students speak the lines of Lord Capulet and the Prince, repressive forces likewise
come at the students from multiple directions. I liked this method of dramatizing the
numerous repressive forces of a society, so I kept the choral convention for the
Prince’s lines. I felt, however, that Lord Capulet’s disowning of Juliet would be more
powerful if only one actor played him, thereby more closely resembling an actual
parent disowning their child because of the child’s homosexual desires.
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Calarco frames Shakespeare's text within an all-boys school by beginning the
play with Student #1 reading Shakespeare's Sonnet 147, which ends, “For I have
sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, / Who art as black as hell, as dark as night,”
followed by a reading of the Act of Contrition, a Catholic prayer that begs God for
forgiveness for sins committed. The juxtaposition of the two well-known pieces sets
up the major source of tension on which the rest of the play rides. The struggles of the
lovers in Shakespeare's play mirrors the cognitive dissonance that all four schoolboys
(not just the two playing Romeo and Juliet) feel between their opposing desires for
one another -- whether they are homosexual, homosocial, or both in nature -- and the
desire to conform to social pressures of compulsory heterosexuality.
In Calarco’s adaptation, a bell rings, and the four students begin reading from
some sort of textbook that discusses the differences in the roles of the male and female
sexes. This scene foreshadows the mixing-up of gender roles that occurs when the
boys begin to play female characters as they act out Romeo and Juliet. After the
convention of the four schoolboys is set up, and the play is contextualized within the
realm of issues of gender and sexuality, Student #1 finds a script of Romeo and Juliet
and convinces the other students to act it out with him. All are happy and having fun
until it comes time for Romeo and Juliet to meet for the first time and begin their illfated romance. The tension created by the budding romance of the “star-crossed
lovers” (1.1) in Shakespeare’s text mirrors the tension created on stage when both the
audience and the boys become disoriented by two men playing the archetypical
heterosexual couple. As events in the original play further polarize the Montague and
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Capulet families, even as the lovers grow closer, the four classmates must to come to
terms with their sexualities and preconceived notions of one another’s status, power,
and masculinity. At the end of the play, when Romeo and Juliet “do with their death /
bury their parents’ strife” (1.1), the four students reach a new understanding and
mutual respect for each other and the choices they have made.
Control Variable
The most exciting aspect of the show for me was the exploration of
Shakespeare’s text, the quintessential heterosexual love story, through the lens of a
young gay man in the contemporary United States. But, in keeping with Lepage's
theatre, the classical text would only be a “starting point” (Dundjerovic 28).
About the time I entered the fourth grade, I began creating stories in which a
very handsome and masculine man would rescue a beautiful, feminine damsel in
distress. The cast of these stories first included me and a woman on whom I had a
crush, but over time the cast grew into older, more developed men and women.
Because of my active imagination, these fantasies were extremely vivid, and as
puberty accelerated, they became increasingly sexual. The settings would change, but
the plots were always painfully clichéd, and the characters’ behavior stuck to strictly
normative gender roles with absolute precision. In high school (yes, I still invented
these fantasies in high school), I tried several times to create a story involving two
men, to see if being gay was something I was actually interested in. I could not,
however, find a way to fit two men into the normatively gendered storylines I had been
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playing with since elementary school. To me, this was empirical proof that being gay
was not something I wanted, because if I were gay, I would never be able to have a
romance like those I saw on TV and had imagined all my life.
When I came out to one of my brothers, he began asking me questions about
growing up in an attempt to understand exactly what it meant for me to be gay. I used
the example of Disney’s animated children’s film Aladdin (1992). I explained that I
was attracted to the character Aladdin in the same way he was attracted to Jasmine.
Unlike my brother, however, I was never able to pursue my interest in Aladdin,
because Aladdin is a boy and must marry Jasmine, who is a woman. I explained
further that this early interaction with gender roles would become a constant theme
throughout my life. I wanted what the princes and princesses in Disney movies had: a
storybook romance. Unfortunately for me, one had to be straight to have one of those.
It took me the entirety of my adolescence to come to terms with the feeling that the
stories I had grown up with, and the relationships I had yearned to emulate were not
actually what I wanted. I will never forget my brother’s response to this story: “Wow,
it’s like you had a completely different childhood than me, and I never knew it, even
though we grew up right next to each other.”
Bornstein said of her life after her gender reassignment surgery, “to this day I
don't know how to respond to a man attracted to me – I never learned the rituals” (39).
This quote resonated with me when I read it, because I felt I had very similar issues
relating to men (sexually, romantically, and platonically) before, and definitely after I
decided to come out of the closet. The importance of the media on our perceptions of
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gender and sexuality was already something I had been exploring, but after reading
that quote, I felt it was imperative that this project attempt to highlight the ways in
which homosexual relationships operate without explicit ritualistic guidelines and
expectations from media and artistic outlets. On the one hand, this narrative vacuum
is liberating. With no archetypical grand-narrative on which to base a relationship,
there is the possibility for greater equality between lovers and much more fluidity in
the roles we perform within a relationship. While the theoretical merits of a
relationship without socialized rituals certainly exist, this void emerges from an even
more problematic issue: the lack of queer narratives in popular art and media.
In the same way that “fables establish and circulate the misnomer of gender as
a natural fact” (Butler xiii), these same stories ignore queer identities, leaving queer
individuals confused and isolated in a world that appears to have no place for them.
From the earliest possible age, children watch Disney movies that almost always
revolve around the romance between a male and female character. These movies act
as an early roadmap to aid young children in interacting with and pursuing interest in
the opposite sex. I am not aware of a single movie geared toward children that in
some way engages the narrative of two men or two women pursuing a romantic
relationship.
Thus queer individuals grow up without the “map” for negotiating
relationships (both friendly and romantic) given to their straight counter-parts from the
earliest age possible. I realized that my thesis could address the “necessary project of
recognizing and validating the creativity and heroism of [Queer identities/narratives]”
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(Sedgwick, Epistemology 43). It occurred to me that perhaps this is why Student #1
picks up Romeo and Juliet: without a metaphoric gender script to follow, he uses the
literal and quintessentially heterosexual script of Romeo and Juliet as the basis for his
personal and queer exploration, because of a lack of really any other, more suitable
option. While the theoretical exploration and deconstruction of gender and sexuality
are imperative to the project, it was always important for me that the play also address
the need for more stories about queer individuals and the legitimacy of their romantic
lives in this country. Through the union of a classic heterosexual narrative and current
issues and understandings of male homosexual identity, I hoped to explore a queer
narrative that is both theoretically thought-provoking and engaging for queer audience
members who do not often see much of themselves in artistic and media
representations of love and desire.
Romeo and Juliet is the perfect point of departure for such a project. The play is
the most often studied Shakespearean text in high school English classes and is often
considered one of the greatest love stories ever told (Carroll 5, vii). Given our
culture’s familiarity, even obsession, with this story, I believe giving it a queer spin in
turn adds much needed legitimacy to queer romance by allowing the queer community
to experience a depiction of passion, desperation, and innocent young love that the
straight community has been privy to since Shakespeare wrote the play some four
hundred years ago.
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The Independent Variables
Calarco’s convention of placing the action of the play within an all-boys
Catholic school allows for exploration not only of issues of gender and sexuality in the
world outside the play, but also within the text of Romeo and Juliet itself. Calarco
stressed in his forward that the actors’ job was to portray the schoolboys first and
foremost, and that it is these characters who take on the various roles within
Shakespeare’s play (6). Through this additional layer, the schoolboys can voice their
discontent both for the actions of their peers, such as when Romeo and Juliet kiss for
the first time and the schoolboys and audience first experience homoeroticism within
the play, and when the schoolboys are unhappy with choices that characters make in
Romeo and Juliet. The latter opportunity became even more important to me when the
mainstream news saw a dramatic spike in the reporting of queer young adults who
have taken their lives because of bullying they experienced in the communities in
which they live. Given that Romeo and Juliet also take their lives at the end of the
play for similar reasons, I felt I had an obligation to address this issue of teen suicide
in my production, but determining exactly how and why would be a long and difficult
process that was not fully realized until later manifestations of this experiment.
In his forward, Calarco writes that the audiences who watched the original
production of Shakespeare's R&J “forgot about gender altogether” (1). I asked
myself: Do I want the audience to forget about gender? For me, issues of gender were
some of the most interesting in the adaptation, and I felt that to “forget about gender”
would negate what was really happening to the four boys. One of the greatest
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discoveries I had while reading Shakespeare's R&J and envisioning four men playing
all the roles was the complexity and strength of the character of Juliet. Juliet is often
played as frail, with an airy affectation to her voice. When envisioning the character
played by a man, however, I was struck be the immense strength and courage of this
young woman. While Romeo dotes on Rosaline, and later Juliet, with a melancholy
and idealized sentimentality, Juliet stands up to her father by refusing to marry Paris,
risks death by accepting Friar Laurence's potion, and is able to outsmart Romeo and
his nimble wordplay in order to insure that his intentions are noble. It is not that the
character changed when I envisioned a man playing her; it is that the masculinity of
the actor highlighted her strength. I was excited to explore this fascinating woman in
a way that I had personally never seen before, namely as an agent of change within the
play, rather than the object around which the other characters in the play circle.
As I began to consider possible casting choices for my production, I recalled an
essay written for the April 26, 2010 online edition of Newsweek I read by a journalist
named Ramin Setoodeh. In this article, Setoodeh criticizes a gay actor for his inability
to convincingly portray a straight man on stage. Rather than consider the issue on an
individual basis, he goes on to make broad statements that categorize all gay actors as
only being capable of portraying “broad caricatures” of heterosexual people, and
incapable of convincingly portraying realistic and multi-dimensional straight
characters “like the ones in Up in the Air or even The Proposal” (Setoodeh).
Sentiments like Setoodeh’s are unfortunately common in the American industries of
art, entertainment, and media. In a world in which all gender is performance, whether
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it is on stage or off, casting opinions like Setoodeh’s are not only unjustly
generalizing, but also downright absurd. The ridiculousness of these beliefs lies not
only in the assertion that all gender is performance (Soloman 34), but also because
theatre is the performance of identity that is acknowledged as performance (Bornstein
147).
To fully explore the notion that “all theatrical gender assignments are
ungrounded and contingent” (Garber 39), I planned to cast a female actor to play one
of the four male parts in the play, though not Romeo or Juliet, as the homosexual
tension between the infamous lovers is the basis for the project. The actors are not
Catholic schoolboys, nor are they Tybalt Capulet, or Benvolio Montague. The actors
are performing for the benefit of the audience in a way they believe these fictitious
characters would behave were they reality, rather than the products of Shakespeare
and Calarco’s imaginations. Similarly Butler would argue that humans of all genders
and sexualities perform and emulate what they imagine constructs like masculinity or
femininity to be, even though society creates these guidelines like an author like
Shakespeare creates the character Mercutio. As I saw it, casting a woman as a man
would in no way alter the arc of the story, but rather would enhance it, because if there
is no such thing as essential masculinity, then we are all performing anyway.
Before auditions, I distributed short scenes from the play for the actors to look
over, as well as a description of the project and the four schoolboys’ personalities.
Though specific traits changed for each character (for instance, Student #1 became
someone who identified as gay by the end of the project), the basic personality of each
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character remained the same throughout the process. The descriptions were as
follows:
Student 1: I see Student 1 as the most sexually progressive
character in the show. I do not believe he has ever considered himself
“gay” prior to falling for Student 2 (Juliet), and even after falling for
him, I think he would refrain from labeling himself. Rather, he is
simply open to intimacy (sexually and otherwise) with anyone he is
attracted to, regardless of sex or gender. He is also the charismatic
force that sets the play in motion, as in Calarco’s adaptation, Student 1
uses the opening prologue from Romeo and Juliet to incite the other
students to act out the play with him.
Student 2: I see him as something of an “all-American” type;
compassionate, down-to-earth, strong, and secure. I also see him as
considering himself “straight,” and therefore being surprised by his
feelings for Student 1 (Romeo). He is also sensitive and emotionally
open, as it is Juliet, more than any other character, that muses on the
nature of love and the complexity of her forbidden love for Romeo.
Student 3: This is likely to be the role that I will cast our female
actor as, but it is important to remember that Student 3 is a young man,
that Mercutio and Friar Laurence are men, and that Lady Capulet is a
woman being played by a man. I believe Student 3 represents
“appropriate” or socially acceptable relationships between men. This is
complicated, however, by the fact that Mercutio has feelings for
Romeo which are not socially acceptable (though not necessarily
sexual), and by the fact that Student 3 is played by a woman.
Student 4: I see him as the voice of tradition and strict
definitions of sexuality and gender. He is the most violent student, and
the one least accepting of the relationship between Students 1 and 2. He
is hyper-masculine (possibly to compensate for secret feelings he has
that he believes are very un-masculine), and his portrayal of the Nurse
is a parody of femininity that he believes is inferior to his machismo.
Dependent Variable
Almost immediately after beginning the casting process, I began running into
dilemmas that threatened the legitimacy of my hypothesis. I began to think that if I
believe that the binary Setoodeh argues for is, in actuality, illusory and malignant, it
makes sense that the other binary that functions around the issue of sexuality (i.e.
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gender) is also illusory, malignant, and worthy of deconstruction and play. I decided,
therefore to cast a woman to explore issues of male homosexuality in order to make
both binaries (sexual orientation and gender) seem ridiculous.
The problem I kept running into, however, was that I felt I was contradicting
myself when I would make a casting call by saying “I need three men and one woman
for a four man production of Romeo and Juliet that will be exploring and
deconstructing issues of gender and sexuality.” How could I hope to deconstruct
gender when even my casting choices are so heavily rooted in the very binary I am
attempting to deconstruct? I was concerned that in spite of myself, I – like Setoodeh –
would end up simply perpetuating problematic gender issues, rather than
deconstructing them. As luck -- or perhaps fate -- would have it, however, the
audition process provided my answer.
Very few men auditioned, which is perhaps telling with regard to issues of
masculine self-regard. Of the few men that did audition, there were not three that I
felt were right for the project. There were, however, many extremely talented women
auditioning for a single role. I had enough talented women to cast the play twice over,
and I had no idea how I was going to say no to all these actors who deserved the part,
in favor of a few men who were not as deserving of the opportunity. I realized that I
had been presented with an opportunity to address another very pertinent, as yet
unaddressed, concern of mine regarding casting in art and entertainment: the general
lack of fully developed, interesting female parts available to the multitude of female
actors in the theatre. Furthermore I saw an opportunity to take my desire to
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deconstruct the gender and sexual binaries radically farther than I could have hoped.
After deliberating with Sarah Stevens and Dr. Jordan Schildcrout, I decided to take the
idea of deconstruction of gender and sexuality through performativity in my original
hypothesis to its most extreme conclusion: casting four women to play the four
schoolboys. The cast was Krista Cickovskis as Student #1, Chloe Mockensturm as
Student #2, Jessica Link as Student #3, and Emily Lerer as Student #4.
At the time, I felt particularly righteous in my decision because it seemed to me
that I would now not only be deconstructing gender and sexuality theoretically. I
would also be deconstructing these constructs practically in the theatre by addressing
a very real and under-addressed problem in the western theatre: the shortage of multidimensional parts for female actors. I believed I would prove that this problem is not
a problem at all because “all theatrical gender assignments are ungrounded and
contingent” (Garber 39).
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Chapter Four: Experiment #2
Hypothesis #2: If I cast four women as the four schoolboys playing the seventeen
characters in Romeo and Juliet, then cultural understandings of the divisions between
man/woman and gay/straight will be so confusing for the audience they will have to be
abandoned.
The change from four male actors playing the schoolboys to four female actors
playing the schoolboys had many advantages. The additional layer of performance in
the project served the purpose of radically destabilizing perceptions of gender and, to a
lesser extent, sexuality. Gender became so destabilized that even I became genderconfused, so much so that I had a hard time keeping straight (pardon the pun) when
the actors were portraying men, when they were portraying women, when they were
both, or if they were neither. To me, it seemed as if the layers of gender were so
confusing as to negate gender all together. I was no longer exploring masculinity as
much as four young women's interpretations of masculinity. There were moments in
the play (as when Student #4 takes on the role of the Nurse) that a woman was playing
a woman being played by a man, meaning that the actor was playing a woman's idea
of what a man's idea of what a woman is. I had effectively destabilized gender, but I
had done it so well that I was now too confused to make any sense of what I was
insinuating by having so many layers of gender performance.
A quote from Butler's Gender Trouble helped me to grasp the relationship
between masculinity and femininity in a way that helped to make sense of my
production and its new cast: “Gender is a relation or set of relations” (9). Gender, in
other words, is relative (Butler 10). Essentially we can only consider ourselves a
specific gender so long as our relationship with other peoples' genders supports our
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assumption. The ways humans attract mates is an example of gender's relativity.
Sedgwick points out that “what defines women as [women] is what turns men on”
(Between Men 7). Conversely the argument can be made that what makes a man
masculine are the traits he displays that prove he is a suitable mate for a female: thus,
male and female become relative to one another.
Joan Riviere, a psychoanalyst and one of Freud’s earliest translators, wrote,
“womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the
possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to
possess it,” meaning that femininity is a series of gestures and postures that women
perform in order to protect themselves from men by making it clear to the man that
they are powerless, and thus not a threat (38). I speculated that if Riviere’s assertion is
true, then logically masculinity is also a performance: the performance of having
power. But men do not simply perform power because they have it, rather, I believe,
this performance emerges from an anxiety and/or fear that they are powerless (i.e. a
woman). If my speculation were true, then this rationale for the performance of
gender served to further emphasize the misogyny of the crisis of masculine selfregard, and demonstrate that “male” and “female” only exist on a heterosexual matrix.
The conclusion reached also highlights the paradox of the gender binary: each
pole requires the other for existence, in that they are both defined as much by what
they are as what they are not. Women perform femininity so as not to be confused as a
man (i.e. as a threat to a more physically powerful individual), and men perform
masculinity so as not to be confused as a woman (i.e. an individual without power). In
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this way, men and women become producers and consumers of both masculinity and
femininity, regardless of which they choose to perform. What this meant tangibly for
my production was that by having the varied layers of gender performance, I was truly
deconstructing the power system that forms the skeletal structure of the gender binary
by giving women (the actors) permission to claim power, and forcing men (the
schoolboys) to give up their power. More important, at least in the practical sense of
the production, was that I now had something tangible with which to explore the shifts
in genders, namely, the use of power.
This rationale deconstructed the gender not only of the actors and schoolboys
on a meta-theatrical level, it also deconstructed the gender of the characters within
Shakespeare's original play. Juliet, by this definition of gender is decidedly not
feminine. As previously discussed, I believe she is a powerful individual who has no
qualms about claiming autonomy whether she is speaking to a fellow woman or a
man. Romeo, too, to a lesser extent perhaps than Juliet, is not especially masculine.
He tends to run from his problems rather than confront them head on, as is made
evident by his sulking over Rosaline, and his refusal to physically engage Tybalt. The
claim that “all of Shakespeare's great characters are suspended between male and
female” (Garber 39) suddenly seemed tangible.
Despite these exciting possibilities for the production’s potential to explore
issues of gender, however, there were numerous problems with the production's
inability to fully engage issues of male homosexuality, homosocial bonding, and
homoeroticism. Homosexuality between women carries different connotations – a
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different “historical position” – in our society than homosexuality between men
(Jagose 13). Though the four actors were playing men, I feared that the audience
would read the homosexual tension more as lesbianism (because the actors are after all
women) rather than tension between two men. Just because gender is a construct
doesn't mean it does not exist. This play is about four school boys exploring their
sexuality, which, in the culture in which I was raised and in which this play operates,
regardless of the theoretical abstractness of gender, is different than four women
exploring their sexuality, and certainly is different than a group of boys and women
exploring their sexuality with each other, even if only because our society has willed it
so). I did not want to negate the realities of the homosexual experience to prove a
theoretical point about the socially constructed nature of gender. But, then, I was
equally hesitant to deny that these are not just four boys, these are four women
performing as boys.
As I saw it, female homosexuality is, if not condoned in our society, eroticized
in a popular culture that I find still views male homosexuality as obscene and
grotesque. The challenge, then, was to find a way to make the image of two women
(pretending to be men) engaging in homoerotic behavior obscene and grotesque in a
way that is, if not similar, then at least comparable to the image of two men engaging
in such behavior.
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Independent Variables
Over winter break, between auditions and the first rehearsal, I asked the actors
to watch movies that dealt with what we would be exploring. I thought that this would
be a fun and accessible introduction to the complex issues of gender and sexual
performance we would be engaging during the rehearsal process. I recommended
movies like Boys Don't Cry (1999), Billy Elliot (2000), Hedwig and the Angry Inch
(2001), Soldier's Woman (2003), Friday Night Lights (2004), Brokeback Mountain
(2005), Breakfast on Pluto (2005), and C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) to get them thinking about
what kinds of behaviors men grow up being expected to fulfill. I also recommended
these movies so the actors would begin to look at how the characters in these movies
either rebel or conform to these social codes of conduct, especially the effect
homosexual desire and behavior has on how individuals and others around them
perceive masculinity. I also suggested they watch romantic comedies and dramas,
including Disney movies, because these films shape children's ideas about how one's
gender is properly performed, especially when interacting with the opposite sex.
Finally I asked them to watch Short Bus (2006) as an exploration of provocative
sexual behavior, as that would be a major component of the project.
Short Bus, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, was workshopped with the
actors in a way that was similar to what I wanted to do with Romeo and Juliet. I
borrowed a few of their techniques, most notably by asking the actors to come up with
the name of their character. I knew that I wanted to give the Students actual names,
rather than numbers, in order to make them more individual and tangible. I felt that
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allowing each actor to create the name of her student would be a way for the actors to
form a more personal relationship with the character, as well as give them permission
to be creative with how the character would grow and evolve over the course of
rehearsals. Student #1 became Chase Hawkins, Student #2 became Ethan Palmer,
Student #3 became Dominic Ward, and Student #4 became Chad “The Moose”
Withers (later changed to Chad “The Moose” Weinstein).
The layers of gender performance, which were seemingly infinite, were
painstakingly tracked and shaped during the rehearsal process in order to keep specific
in the minds of both the actors and myself the shifting layers of gender identity, as
well as to allow such shifting to continue to complicate the specificity of gender
identity in the minds of the audience. One outcome of the shifting layers of gender
performance was that even in rehearsals, forgotten and overlooked lines of text
immediately sprang to new life and meaning. Friar Lawrence’s chiding Romeo's
“womanish” tears in Act 3, scene 3, suddenly went from a mild insult to a defining
moment in the show: a woman, playing a boy, playing another boy is being accused of
not properly performing his gender makes the entire idea of “proper” performance of
gender impossible. I had not imposed this idea on the script; we simply contextualized
the ideas in the scene differently. I suspect, or at least hope that those who saw the
show will never be able to think about that scene the same way again.
The first and largest problem with the process was that I had little to no idea
how to coach four young women on how to act like men before rehearsals began. I
used Michael Chekhov’s psycho-physical acting technique as the basis for helping the
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women move and behave “like men,” along with Anne Bogart and Tina Landau’s
Viewpoint work to address issues of how one uses space and spatial relationship in
different ways. While these approaches were effective, both techniques are so broad
and diverse that I spent a large chunk of valuable rehearsal time developing specific
exercises to explore and help the women understand how to perform masculinity
effectively.
Chekhov’s psycho-physical technique arose from a need he saw to increase the
“sensitivity of [the] body to the psychological creative impulses” (Chekhov 2). He
believed that the “body of an actor must absorb psychological qualities, must be filled
and permeated with them so that they will convert it gradually into a sensitive
membrane, a kind of receiver and conveyor of the subtlest images, feelings, emotions
and will impulses” ( 2). By developing the imagination “through systematic
exercises,” Chekhov believed the actor could hone the body and the mind into a single
instrument with the capacity to “create…discover and show new things” (27) about
the body and psychology of the character being played, as well as about the mood,
tone, and themes of the play as a whole.
To help the women experience the world in a male body, I decided to start by
using Chekhov's “imaginary body” exercise, in which the actor imagines that a part of
her or his body transforms, and then allow this change to affect their behavior. At the
second rehearsal, for example, each actor chose a different image: one assumed the
entire body, face and dress of Han Solo (a rugged and strong male character from the
Star Wars [1977] trilogy); another imagined a full beard on her face; and another
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imagined that she was ten feet tall with huge arm muscles. At this point, I did not
know what to look for, as I was not entirely sure what made a person appear
masculine. When the actors adopted their imaginary bodies, their jaws would become
more set, chests would swell and rise, steps became more deliberate, hips rotated up
and down (rather than side to side), and arms swung loosely at their sides, but the
women still lacked confidence in their new bodies.
Viewpoint work became useful to address this issue of how the women take up
space. Bogart and Landau define Viewpoint work as “a philosophy translated into a
technique for (1) training performers; (2) building ensemble; and (3) creating
movement for the stage” (7). There are nine Viewpoints, each of which represents a
different dimension of movement: Spatial Relationship, Kinesthetic Response, Shape,
Gesture, Repetition, Architecture, Tempo, Duration, and Topography (Bogart, Landau
6). By isolating and combining some or all of the nine Viewpoints through various
exercises, actors develop a movement “vocabulary” that allows for more spontaneity
in moments, as well as “helps [the actor to] recognize the limitations we impose on
ourselves and our art by habitually submitting to a presumed absolute
authority...Viewpoints leads to greater awareness, which leads to greater choice,
which lead to greater freedom” (Bogart, Landau 19). By asking the actors to pay
attention to the space that they occupied, their spatial relationships with their fellow
actors, and the room in which they worked, they began to see that the way they use
space is different from the way men move when walking down a street or through a
hall way.
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One exercise, led by Professor Rebecca Vernooy, was to set up four chairs in
the middle of the room and ask the women to sit in a chair and wait for a very
important job interview. We then repeated the exercise, but this time we asked them
to enter the space as men. The shift was immediate and startlingly specific: the “men”
chose “the chair I wanted” rather than the one closest to them. They also took up
more space in the room while they waited; meaning both that they physically spread
their legs out and broadened their shoulders, but also their non-physical presence in
the room was greater, and less apologetic.
The actors were actually rather shaken by this discovery. Lerer, for instance,
who believed she was a very masculine woman before the rehearsal process began,
was surprised to find that she used space in very “feminine” ways. It was emotionally
difficult for them to come to terms with the idea that women apologize for occupying
space, rather than taking it as men do, as well as that they, as women, behave in this
way. They had never before realized that, solely because of their gender, they were
conditioned to, in Lerer’s words, “complement a space,” rather than inhabit it (Lerer).
Around the tenth rehearsal, I began to see that words like “masculine” and
“feminine” were confusing the actors, and making them waddle around like plastic
dolls with an inappropriate number of joints. Indeed, when I would ask for an
adjustment like “sink more into your hips” I would achieve what I desired, a more
confident stride, with weight being carried lower in the body. Despite seeing what I
wanted to see from the actors, I would get responses like “but I feel more feminine
like this, I don’t feel like a man.”
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As a result of this discovery, as well as other smaller ones that resulted from
working with the actors on moving like men, I determined that the best way to
approach this work was to focus on several psycho-physical qualities associated with
masculine behavior, rather than on masculinity itself. These qualities were muscle
(moving with a feeling of strength in the body, especially upper body), weight
(moving from a center of gravity low in the pelvis), and entitlement of space (to quote
Bornstein, “male privilege is the assumption that one has the right to occupy a place or
person” [108]). Some women had more problems with one of these three qualities
than another, but by focusing on how the women used these three qualities we were
able to achieve at least a satisfactory level of competence in performing malegendered behavior. Specifically (though not exclusively) the women began to move
with more power, confidence, and a propensity for violence. This last quality was one
of the most interesting, in retrospect, to discover. Bornstein adds to her definition of
male privilege that “male privilege is violence” (108), which I understand as follows:
male privilege is the assumption that one has the right to occupy a place or person and
the assumption that one has the right to utilize aggression and violence on obstacles to
this right of occupation.
Dependent Variable
At the seventeenth rehearsal I asked Vernooy and Schildcrout to watch a runthrough of the show. Though I had actually been feeling very confident about the
play, it became immediately clear that a lot was still missing from the performance.
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While the story of Romeo and Juliet was being told clearly and effectively, I had not
blocked the show to take full advantage of the space. The stakes that the actors were
working with were not high enough, particularly when it came to issues of love and
death. Most important, the storyline of the four schoolboys and their struggles with
the text and with each other as they explore Shakespeare's play was at best muddy and
unspecific, at worst, lost altogether.
As I had feared, issues of gender were being explored and fully developed, but
issues of sexuality, especially as it pertains to young American males, were lost or
nonexistent. It became clear that simply using Calarco's adaptation of Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet would not be enough to tell the story I hoped to tell. I would have to
use a mixture of well thought-out directing ideas, include current events, and adapt
Calarco's adaptation in order to make my play starring four women playing four
schoolboys acting out Romeo and Juliet into a theatrical production that explored
issues of gender and sexuality in twenty-first century America.
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Chapter Five: Experiment #3
Hypothesis #3: If I frame the text of Romeo and Juliet in the theoretical world of
gender and sexual identity theory by writing a script that exists simultaneously within
Romeo and Juliet, and that explicitly discusses issues of gender and sexual orientation
in the contemporary western world, then the four women will be able to successfully
explore issues of male homosexual identity in a performance of Romeo and Juliet.
Even before the first rehearsal, I knew I had taken on a bigger project than I
could ever hope to fully realize. I did not fully appreciate the scope and size of the
project, however, until I had begun rehearsals, and realized just how much of
Calarco’s script I needed to revise in order to fully address the issues I wanted to
address. His cuts to Shakespeare's text were very helpful, as he did a fantastic job of
cutting up scenes and assigning parts in such a way as to make it very easy for four
actors to tell the story of Romeo and Juliet clearly, while keeping the famous parts of
the play. But I needed to make a two-act show running approximately two hours into
a one-act running under an hour-and-a-half, which in and of itself was difficult,
considering Calarco and I were working with a text originally five acts long and
running about three hours.
I came to realize that I was not doing Romeo and Juliet, but rather what four
sixteen-year-old boys’ idea of Romeo and Juliet might be. This realization gave me
the point of view and permission I needed to make serious changes to the script. It
became very clear that the only scenes that truly mattered were the ones in which the
four schoolboys would have a strong point-of-view. If the scene would not be in some
way relevant, exciting, or repulsive for one or more of the boys, there was no point in
including it in my production.
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For instance I knew that, given the context of my play, I had to do something
with the balcony scene. It is an iconic scene of young, straight love. I could not,
therefore, simply direct the scene as everyone would expect it to be done because part
of the project was to explore what is different about perceptions of homosexual
romantic relationships. After wandering in circles about exactly how to explore this
difference, Schildcrout explained that what he saw me doing, and what he wanted to
see more of, was a “punk-patchwork-collage.” This irreverent cut-and-paste image
was exactly what I needed to make the script work for me as I needed it to. I cut the
balcony scene up with lines from the previous scene, in which Mercutio attempts to
“conjure” Romeo with insults and sexual innuendos. The effect was that while Chase
(playing Romeo) desperately tries to experience the kind of romantic wooing scene
straight boys are often privy to, Dominic and Moose (playing Mercutio and the Nurse
respectively) interrupt the intimate moment, robbing the other young men of a moment
many straight couples have experienced, even if only on the stage. I then reprised the
balcony scene later in the play, before the “morning-after scene” (after Romeo and
Juliet have consummated their marriage) in order to give the young lovers a different
but equally fulfilling romantic experience.
The cuts to the balcony scene are resulted in some of my favorite moments in
the show. Dominic and Moose's robbing Chase and Ethan of the balcony scene at its
proper place in the script is made all the more visceral and clear by the iconic nature of
the scene. When Dominic and Moose interrupt the scene with catcalls and allusions to
female genitalia, ultimately forcing the scene to end prematurely, it is clear that their
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homophobia is denying the young men an intimate and lovely opportunity to explore
their feelings for one another, as well as the nature of love itself. The dramatic irony
created by nearly everyone in the audience knowing what was supposed to come next
amplifies this feeling of missed opportunity. Even people unfamiliar with the rest of
the play know what is about to happen when Romeo begins “Hark, what light through
yonder window breaks?” (2.1).
The new location of the balcony scene in my adaptation gives the scene added
poignancy. I situated the reprisal of the scene after Act 3, scene 3, in which Friar
Laurence informs Romeo that he is banished as punishment for murdering Juliet's
cousin, Tybalt. The stakes are therefore high for the characters, which better
represents the danger felt by young gay lovers as they explore their feelings in a
society that does not approve of, and even attempts to actively and passively obstruct
this exploration. Tybalt and Mercutio, and Dominic and Moose act out violently
because of Romeo and Juliet's relationship, and likewise Chase and Ethan's, which
culminates in the death of Mercutio and Tybalt, and the utter humiliation of Dominic
and Moose. The balcony scene's new position means that this violent reaction against
the romance occurs before the scene begins, which changes the tone of the scene
dramatically. Before, when Juliet asks “What's in a name? That which we call a rose /
By any other name would smell as sweet; / So Romeo would, were he not Romeo
call'd” (2.3), the question is innocent and endearing. Now the question is one of grave
importance, as the lives of her family and her lover are now in jeopardy. There is a
tone of morbid futility in the question now as well, as Juliet comes to terms with the
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devastation that her relationship with Romeo has wrought on her family, and will
continue to do so if she remains in a relationship with him.
As the scene progresses, Juliet's back-and-forth rhetoric, between wanting to
give over to Romeo and understanding the danger of her position, is given added
justification. When Romeo finally does convince her that their love is worth risking
their parents’ wrath, it is clear that both Romeo and Juliet are passing the point of no
return. These stakes are not as clear when the scene is located at the beginning of the
play, before either Romeo or Juliet really understand what they risk by continuing
their relationship. This point-of-no-return tone to the end of the scene is perfect for
the structure of the story, as the scene that follows is the “morning after scene,” when
Romeo and Juliet wake in the same bed, having just consummated their relationship,
and say goodbye to each other (for what will ultimately be the last time) before Romeo
accepts exile and leaves Verona for Mantua. I will discuss this moment, and how I
used it, in more detail later in this chapter.
Simply reorganizing the text, however, was not enough to draw out the
storyline of the four schoolboys and their journey through the themes and issues being
explored. I began by augmenting the classroom text that Calarco added to the script
with text that I felt better contextualized the world of my production. While the “book
reports” Calarco wrote for the schoolboys to read at the beginning of the play all dealt
with gender divisions in a socio-historical context, I wanted to demonstrate that
pressure to conform to gender and sexual norms come from every direction, not
simply our understanding of history and sociology. I decided to have the boys “attend”
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four classes before diving into their production of Romeo and Juliet, with each of the
boys giving a book report or presentation in a different subject. Dominic read aloud
the Act of Contrition (given to Student #1 along with Shakespeare's Sonnet 147 in
Calarco's adaptation) at the beginning of classes in a manner that is similar to the Mass
many Catholic school children must attend before the start of classes. A bell rings and
the boys move off to history class, where Ethan reads a book report on the differences
in genders (taken from Calarco's adaptation). After another bell, the students move to
biology, where Moose gives a presentation on Angus John Bateman's theory of
ansiogamy, or the difference in production of gametes, which holds that “as a result of
ansiogamy, males are fundamentally promiscuous, and females are fundamentally
selective,” for which he is ridiculed by his peers because it is obvious he simply
copied his report from Wikipedia. Finally the students move to English class, where
Chase reads Sonnet 147 while making significant glances in Ethan's direction.
Independent Variables
Revising the book report convention to frame the play within a context that
more specifically speaks to the issues my production was exploring was not enough to
bring the four schoolboys fully to life for the audience. I was at a loss as to how to
make it clear that the four schoolboys played by the actors were distinct from the parts
they played in Romeo and Juliet, and more important, that they did not always agree
with the behavior of the characters they and their peers played. I recalled a short
passage in Garber's Vested Interests that had struck me as very interesting when I read
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it, but had largely forgotten about it because I had not found enough theoretical
substance behind it to include it in my compiling of research. The passage discusses
the position of public restrooms in the understanding, performance of, and debate over
gender.
Garber’s main point is that the bifurcation of public restrooms along gender
lines reinforces the division, and also makes the simple and necessary act of going to
the bathroom extremely complicated for queer individuals, particularly transgender
individuals, who are often not permitted to use either men's or women's restrooms
because of complaints by other patrons. This idea of the public restroom as the final
frontier of gender divisions was incredibly intriguing to me, and pertinent to my
project, though I wasn't quite sure how until I recalled a particular portion of this
passage that describes the urinal as the ultimate marker of gender-difference, and thus
becomes a test of gender identity for men and female-to-male transsexuals (Garber
14).
In an instant I realized how I could convince the audience to, in Alisa
Solomon’s word, “accept” that the four actors were men for the duration of the play,
while simultaneously giving the boys a forum to discuss their feelings about
Shakespeare's play and the issues it is bringing up among them. I dubbed the
convention the “urinal scene,” in which the schoolboys would gather around a foursided pillar while simulating the act of peeing at a urinal, the ultimate mark of
masculinity. I wrote a series of conversations the boys have while gathered around the
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urinals, which discuss issues in the play, as well as actual events occurring outside the
play, and indeed the production itself.
One such conversation centered on a still-existent law, originally passed in the
1980's, in Australia that gives the principals of private schools the authority to expel a
student on the suspicion that the student was a homosexual (Marr). Early in the
process, the actors and I decided that the Prince of Romeo and Juliet would take on the
attributes of the four schoolboys' principal. It therefore seemed logical to place this
conversation around the first entrance of the Prince, so that when the Prince banishes
Romeo later in the play, connections could be drawn between that moment in the play
and the power some wish to give to principals in Australia, and parts of the US as well
(“HU Queer Press”), to “banish” students on the grounds of their sexuality. I even
named the Principal of the four boys “Principal Wallace” after Jim Wallace, who is a
major and highly vocal proponent of keeping and utilizing the law in Australia (Marr).
Another conversation included a discussion of the sexuality of several comic
book characters inspired by a quote from Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw, which reads:
“Just because Catwoman is a woman and Batman is a boy does not make their
encounters heterosexual...there is nothing straight about two people getting it on in
rubber and latex costumes, wearing eye-masks and carrying whips and other toys”
(36). Other similarly humorous conversations occur, such as when Moose reflects that
Walt Disney and his production company have the right idea in ignoring queer
narratives by only showing romantic relationships between a man and a woman, to
which Ethan and Chase counter, “You do know Walt Disney was a raging anti-
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Semite? Right? I don’t think he would have approved of you any more than he
approves of the 'queers,' Chad Weinstein.” I changed the Moose's last name from
Withers to Weinstein in order to make that joke possible. Not all of the “urinal
scenes” are as jovial as these, however. The boys discuss the recent suicide of a
young boy at a neighboring school that was likely the result of anti-gay bullying, and
whether or not Ethan and Chase kissing, which is written into the script of Romeo and
Juliet, makes either of the boys gay, among other theoretically and emotionally
difficult topics.
The inclusion of the urinal scenes was successful for a number of reasons.
Both the image of the actors at the urinals, as well as their banter, which ranged in
tone from witty play to aggressive intimidation, gave the schoolboys an appropriate
youthful vivaciousness and hormonal angst they were sorely missing in previous drafts
of my adaptation. The urinal scenes also allowed me to engage the complex
theoretical research I had done without beating the audience over the head. Another
advantage of the urinal scenes was that they allowed me to respond to current event
issues regarding gender and sexuality that I found extremely relevant to the project,
but had not found a way to incorporate. I think this also had the added benefit of
reminding the audience that these issues are not merely theoretical, but something that
individuals like themselves wrestle with on a daily basis outside the space of the
production.
The urinal scenes also led to another and totally unexpected convention. Very
early in the process, before I even had a cast, Vernooy suggested I use dildos to
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represent the sexual activity I wished to explore. I dismissed the idea as being too
absurd for the world of the play I hoped to create. With the actors now standing in
front of imaginary urinals, simulating urinating while doing it, however, the idea of
using dildos seemed not only fitting, but also somehow logical, even necessary. I
realized too, that there were other opportunities for the actors to essentially “whip out
their manhood” over the course of the show. In the end, the dildos, which the actors
kept in the pants’ pockets of their costumes and were thus visible through the fabric
depending on how the women were standing, were whipped out any time they
gathered around the urinals and during several of the fight scenes that occur
throughout the play.
The dildos (a last minute addition to the production that the women had only
four rehearsals to work with) worked well and served several equally important
functions. For instance, they deconstructed the notion that genitalia is a gender
signifier by making the male signifier (the penis) into an accessory that is separate
from the individual, however important it might be to “his” identity. Based on the
reactions that I got from audience members in the talkback sessions, I believe the
dildos did effectively dramatize this complex theoretical idea. The dildos, which were
huge, veiny, and wobbled constantly, were appropriately absurd. When the boys
whipped them out in fight scenes in order to emphasize their masculinity, the
masculine posturing came off as absurd and incongruous as the silicon phalluses
themselves.
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The dildos were also used in one more scene. The space in between the
reprised balcony scene and the morning after scene became the perfect opportunity to
solve one of the more problematic aspects of the show for me. As previously
discussed, my biggest fear about casting four women rather than four men in the
project was that the homoeroticism displayed by the actors/characters would be read
by the audience as lesbianism (which in a sense it is, given the gender of the actors),
which holds a different cultural stigma than homosexual behavior between two men
(which is what the actors are representing by playing schoolboys).
I decided the way to combat this conundrum was to actually show the two
lovers engage in the sexual union that is usually only alluded to at the start of the next
scene. I intended the audience to feel uncomfortable watching the erotically charged
union of the two lovers, and thereby create an effect similar to that of watching two
actual men kiss. The actors began kissing passionately and running their hands over
each other’s bodies. As the scene began to heat up, Chase and Ethan unzipped each
other's pants and removed each other's dildos from their pockets, holding onto them
firmly but intimately. This is the only moment in the play when a boy touches
another’s phallus. Chase then moved to sit on Ethan's lap and simulated thrusting.
Ethan then moved from underneath of Chase to allow Chase to move behind him,
were the act of coitus continued to be simulated. Both actors remained fully clothed,
but the image was no less startling and unmistakably sexual. After the two finished,
they returned each other's dildos to their owner's pockets, and lay down to “sleep”
before they woke up to continue with the morning-after scene. Because the actors
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playing the young men involved in the scene are women, divisions of gender and
sexuality became incredibly problematic. As Schildcrout put it, the event was
“simultaneously heterosexual (Romeo and Juliet), gay male (Chase and Ethan), and
lesbian (the actresses)” (Schildcrout).
Even before I decided to cast women, I had known I wanted to do something
like the scene described above. Since coming up with the idea, I debated who should
have what position. As previously discussed, there are assumptions made about one’s
character when one is described as a “top” or “bottom.” My initial reaction, therefore,
was to subvert the audience’s expectations about who would act as the masculine top
and who would act as the feminine bottom. It was for this reason that I first
envisioned Student #2 as an “all-American” jock, rather than an effeminate and
passive boy one might except to play Juliet. I was not happy with this binary way of
thinking, because I do not believe that it fully addressed what I believe to be the
potentially egalitarian power structure of homosexual intercourse. Whereas during
heterosexual intercourse the ability of the woman to penetrate or top the man requires
props, in homosexual intercourse, both parties can play either role at any time. I
believe that my decision to have Chase and Ethan assume both roles over the course of
the scene fulfills what Bornstein describes as the need for art and theatre that portrays
all sex, regardless of orientation or fetish, as “consensually sadomasochistic” (162).
The audiences’ reception of the scene was just as I had hoped. The mixture of
thrusting, passionate kissing, and dildos created the tone I hoped it would, as well as
reminded the audience that what they were watching was intended to be two young
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boys engaging in carnal acts. There were a myriad of reactions, all of which I thought
were perfect: the initial reaction was that nearly everyone's jaw dropped open. After
the shock wore off, many held a knowing smile on their face, while others held a hand
across their agape mouth to hide either their horror, amusement, or some combination
of the two. Others, like a friend of mine who identifies as gay, nodded his head in
sincere, conspiratorial approval the entire time. Others were horrified, and some even
looked at the exit as if trying to decide whether it would be more awkward to walk out
in the middle of the scene or stay, and continue watching. I even had several people
walk up to me after the show to say that once they understood “what I was doing” with
the scene, they spent the rest of the time watching other audience member's reactions
to the two young lovers.
The use of dildos was not, however, the only gendered theatrical convention
employed in my production. At the first rehearsal, I told the actors that I was
considering asking them to bind their breasts. I was not sure if this was something I
wanted to do, however, because I found the restrictive nature of binding theoretically
problematic. I felt the idea of removing the actors’ gender signifiers (their breasts) by
painfully flattening them against their bodies was counter to my goal of creating an
atmosphere of play within the gender binary. I also felt uncomfortably privileged as a
man, by asking four women to bind themselves for the purpose of my exploration of
male homosexuality in America. The actors insisted that binding would help them
feel more like men, however, and they observed that some male behavior, such as
puffing out the chest, was easier to commit to with a bound chest. In addition to the
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binding, the actors’ costumes consisted of identical black plaid button-down shirts,
black belts, khaki pants, black shoes, and black baseball hats under which they hid
their hair.
The changes to the book reports at the beginning of the play not only
succeeded in showing that gender and sexuality are not simply shaped by sociohistorical forces but all facets of our daily life (including science and technology).
These changes also created an opportunity to show how the four schoolboys grow and
change by the end of the play. At the conclusion of Romeo and Juliet, the boys return
to the classrooms to give another round of reports. This time, Chase reads the Prince's
final monologue at the end of the play which ends “go hence, to have more talk of
these sad things; / Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: / For never was a story
of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo” (5.3). Rather than begging for
forgiveness for sins against God, Dominic recites the Serenity Prayer, which includes
the line “Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.” Moose
continues presenting his research on ansiogamy, this time taking up Olivia Judson's
perspective by quoting that “Bateman's principle is incorrect for such a large
percentage of species that it should no longer be considered a valid principle”
(Wikipedia).
In Calarco's adaptation, the final moment of the play is a mixture of
monologues from various plays of Shakespeare, the most central and prominent being
Puck's final monologue from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I did not like this ending
because, after all that the students have gone through and learned over the course of
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the play, I found the mood to be too whimsical and carefree. Nor did I feel that this
idea engaged the themes of the play in any substantial way, much less conclude them.
What is more, the idea of giving the audience permission to dismiss the play because
“this weak and idle theme / [is] no more yielding but a dream” (5.1) was dishonest to
the project, and those the project aims to help. Issues of gender and sexuality are not,
as far as I am concerned, “weak and idle themes,” and though the events of the play
were both fictional and highly stylized, the issues with which the four boys struggle
are very real for a very real portion of the population, myself included. I therefore set
about to find another way to end the play that would put some kind of button on the
themes and ideas addressed in the play, while presenting the audience with a proper
tone to walk away with.
Another issue I hoped to address was the gender of the four actors. It was very
important that the audience accept that the four women are men for the duration of the
play, but it was also essential that they never forget that the actors are read as women
outside the play, as well as in most other theatrical productions. The number and
intricacy of the layers of gender in this production border of the absurd, which was
precisely the point. I wanted to work into the performance, at some point, a “reveal”
in which the actors acknowledge their female gender, which would further complicate
the way the audience perceived the gender of those participating in the performance -both real and fictional -- and thus, perhaps complicate their perceptions of gender
outside the performance space. I found a way to do this and end the show in a way I
saw fitting with the help of Rosalind's epilogue in As You Like It.
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Solomon’s review of Cheek by Jowl's 1991 all-male production of As You Like
It, in her book Redressing the Cannon, was the first piece of research I read in
preparation for this project. Her description of their production stuck me with
throughout the project, particularly her description of Rosalind's epilogue that, in the
context of their production, subtly and powerfully questioned the naturalness of
heterosexuality (Soloman 25). It came time to give Ethan something to read for his
final book report, something that would acknowledge the nature of gender
performance in this particular production, conclude the discussion on issues of gender
and sexuality, and leave the audience with something to chew on as they left the space.
The decision was relatively easy: Rosalind's epilogue!
I felt that Ethan was the right boy to have this monologue, because I felt he
was the bravest of the boys for being willing to take on the role of Juliet, and as a
result of playing Juliet, grew the most in his understandings of the nature of gender.
Ultimately all the actors took a portion of the monologue, as its subject matter
pertained to all of them equally. Performed in Shakespeare's time by a young man, or
boy, playing a woman who pretends to be a man, the monologue is a very witty
deconstruction of gender, made all the more impressive because it implies that
Shakespeare himself was already at least partially aware of the performative nature of
gender some three hundred years before Rubin would make a similar postulation.
In both the original production and Cheek by Jowl's recent production, the line
“if I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me,
complexions that liked me and breathes that I defied not” (5.4) questions our
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understandings of masculinity and femininity. The actor, who in both productions was
perceived by the audience to be definitively male, who gives this speech
acknowledges his gender, and thus the performative nature of his femininity and
Rosalind's masculinity, and as a result, his masculinity as well. This line becomes, at
first glance, ironic when four female actors speak it, as they did in this production. To
have four women ask, “If I were a woman,” however, simply and clearly drives the
point that all gender assignments are based on perception and performance, and thus
illusory. By stating, “If I were a woman,” the actors acknowledge the social
constructed and non-essential nature of gender, and ask the audience to do the same.
During this final moment, the actors let down their hair, acknowledging their
gender, at least as far as the majority of western culture is concerned. Yet they
remained bound and in male clothing, which, when coupled with the above paradox of
their words, created the effect of androgyny, or a third space apart from the binary of
male and female, a place of possibility.
Dependent Variable
Because so much of the project revolved around societal and cultural
perceptions, it was very important to have some way to gauge the audience's reaction
to the production. To that end, I held audience talkbacks after all three performances,
in which the audience, cast, and director could ask each other questions. Most of the
audiences’ questions revolved around the process of getting the actors to behave like
men. I described the Chekhov and Viewpoint work, and one of the actors voiced her
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appreciation for Jay-Z. One of the activities we played with to help the actors with
their gait and how they hold their weight in a more masculine manner was to have
them listen to “Run This Town” by Jay-Z. At first, the women looked ridiculous, but
after I encouraged them not to think in terms of walking “like a man,” but rather, like
someone with confidence and security in their space, they developed the proper
“straight-boy swag” I was looking for.
Other activities that stuck out for the actors and me during the talk-backs, aside
from the ones already described, were the urinal and dildo tutorials, in which I took
the four women into a men's bathroom, and showed them how to properly urinate in
the toilet while standing. The women were at first pointing their phalluses in ways
that would have guaranteed splatter, or would move and shake them while talking in
ways that would similarly guarantee a mess. I also described the urinal etiquette
lessons I gave the women, which included reprimands for the eye contact they
attempted while urinating, as well as an acknowledgement that the at length
conversations I wrote for them while they were gathered around the urinals would,
outside the world of a stylized play, be very inappropriate in American male
restrooms.
Ultimately the project of getting the actors to behave like men was not totally
successful. I got several comments to the effect of “I would have liked the show better
if there had actually been guys up there exploring these issues.” While this failure to
fully achieve masculine performance was not ideal for the production in some ways,
even the actors’ failure to fully perform masculinity is informative for the larger issues
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of gender and sexuality in which this project exists. Specifically one member of the
audience noted that the women threw very unconvincing punches. I agreed with his
analysis, as I was unhappy with the way the women fought, even after dedicating
entire rehearsals to addressing the fight scenes. What seems to be implied by this
frustration and ineffectual fighting style is that violence, or at least the violent taking
of space, is deeply related to the normative male experience and not the female
experience, and as such, is not something most women are comfortable with.
Unfortunately the explorations that resulted in such important understandings
about masculinity took too much time relative to the amount of time available to us in
a six-week rehearsal process. The explorations were necessary, but ultimately took
away from other essential aspects of the rehearsal process, especially scene work. We
spent so much time working on the “how” of a scene, elements like motivation and
trying to “achieve” in moments received less attention than they are due.
Another limitation of the gender experience of my cast is that I would have
liked to explore the relationship between homosocial bonding and homoeroticism with
more detail and nuance. Sedgwick theorizes that “in men's heterosexual relationships,
the ultimate goal is bonding between men... and that this bonding is definitive of
masculinity” (Between Men 50). Also, when looking at the issue of homosocial
bonding, the issue of sexuality always arises. As Sebastian Junger, the co-director of a
war documentary Restrepo (2010), writes:
If you deprive men of the company of women for too long, and then
turn off the steady adrenaline drip of heavy combat, it may not turn
sexual, but it’s certainly going to turn weird. And weird it was strange
pantomimed man-rape and struggles for dominance and grotesque,
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smoochy come-ons that could only make sense in a place where every
other form of amusement had long since been used up. … It was just so
hypersexual that gender ceased to matter. (Junger)
Others would disagree, going as far as to say that “'real' men need sex no matter what,
so choosing abstinence can only mean you’re not a real man. Who you have sex with
is of far lesser importance” (qtd. in Junger). To consider homosocial bonding in
relation to desire and eroticism is to hypothesize the unbroken continuum between
homosocial and homosexual desire (Sedgwick 1, Between Men).
Such a continuum is extremely dangerous to modern conceptions of
masculinity, and is therefore something I would have liked to harness with more
precision and dexterity. I believe such an undertaking would have required a male
cast, at least with the amount of time I had to work on the project, because the
“strange pantomimed man-rape and struggles for dominance and grotesque, smoochy
come-ons” (Junger), which are emblematic of straight homosocial interaction, were
not something the women grasped easily. To get the actors to convincingly
participate in horseplay like that described above required more time than we had in
the six-week rehearsal process.
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Chapter Six: The Conclusion
Suicide is one aspect of the project that I have not yet discussed. I waited until
the end of this thesis to discuss it, because it turned out to be the most challenging
issue to address. As a result, I feel that the way I finally approached the suicide
became a thesis statement to the process as a whole. As I began researching this
project during the fall of 2010, the mainstream news cycle and online blogosphere saw
a drastic rise in coverage of teen suicides that were the result of bullying regarding
sexuality.
The ways in which the media approached the subject were troubling as well.
While the behavior that spurred the suicides was being criticized, there was little to no
criticism of the suicidal behavior itself. This radically unhealthy behavior was being
excused because of the situations the victims lived in. I feared that this kind of
rhetoric would lead to a “suicide contagion,” meaning that “publicizing gay youth
suicide may provoke similar behavior among vulnerable youth” (Savin-Williams). I
believed that the amount of attention and sympathy being given to the suicide victims
would entice others to follow suit in an attempt for similar recognition.
I also had a problem with whom the “gay youth suicide epidemic” referred to.
In reality, not all of the teens who became emblematic of the need for an end to
homophobic bullying were gay, or even had homosexual desires. Rather, “bullies
select their victims based less on their same-sex sexual attractions than on their gender
non-conformity” (Savin-Williams). It seemed to me that the media was
oversimplifying a very complex issue, just as everything else in this culture relating to
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sexuality. Given the stakes of the current crisis, I found this overgeneralization of the
victims to be counterproductive and dangerous.
Given the actions taken by Romeo and Juliet at the end of the play, I felt
obligated to address the issue of teen suicide. I could not fully address issues of
gender and sexual identity in a culture that leaves gender non-conforming teens
feeling as if they have no option but suicide in a play that is ultimately about teen
suicide without including a discussion of teen suicide. I was not sure, however, what
my position should be. I did not want to condone the suicidal behavior, but I also did
not want to be insensitive to the victims of bullying who took their lives. I was not
sure whether to allow the lovers to kill themselves, and comment on the behavior after
the fact, or to stop the action of the play before the act of suicide. After numerous
discussions with the cast and my advising team, I decided to split the difference, and
include all perspectives in the final moment of Shakespeare's script.
I included multiple references to teen suicide in the urinal scenes, so that the
characters and the audience would begin to develop their own opinions about teen
suicide as it relates to my project. Chase, a romantic who sympathizes with the
victims of homophobic bullying and the suicides it sometimes triggers, commits fully
to the final act, and dies in a way he finds “tragic and beautiful.” Ethan, however,
refuses to kill himself (as Juliet) because he finds the behavior ludicrous. In early
drafts of the ensuing argument over the legitimacy of both Chase and Ethan's opinions
on the suicide of Romeo and Juliet, only Chase and Ethan spoke. I was not satisfied
with the dialogue, however, because I felt that the point of views of Dominic and the
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Moose were equally valid to the discussion, given that their actions and opinions
helped shape those of Chase and Ethan. Schildcrout cautioned me to remember to
keep the argument universalizing and inclusive of all experiences of gender and
sexuality rather than minoritizing and exclusive to homosexual – or even queer –
experiences. Moose, though not the victim of the bulling, was still a victim of the
restrictive notions of gender and sexuality that led to the radical behavior of the
victims of his bullying, and the behavior of other bullies on which the character is
based.
By including Dominic and the Moose's narratives, rather than just those of the
victimized lovers, in the final argument over the death of Romeo and Juliet, the
conversation became the climax of the theoretical discourse the characters participated
in over the course of the show. Moose is left visibly shaken for being criticized for his
use of the word “fag,” which, according to Chase, he overuses to the point that it has
lost all meaning, and only demonstrates the Moose's “stupid obsession with the idea
that masculinity is somehow worth something.” Dominic, after remaining silent the
entire play about how he actually feels about the events of the play, finally explains
his lack of commitment to any side of the argument, saying “I don’t want to have to
declare myself as something just so other people can think they know something about
me.” Ethan reprimands Chase for his romanticization of the action of the play by
saying, “Why are you glorifying teen suicide like it’s this noble thing? These people
aren’t martyrs, they’re victims.” Ethan ends the argument by coming to the
conclusion that I believe all of the aforementioned theory and experiences has led to:
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“It’s not about ending homophobia, it’s bigger than that. You all have to stop thinking
that all these polar-opposites you've categorized the world into actually mean
anything” (Kopciak).
I am absolutely positive that the above conclusion, which I do adamantly
believe to be true, could not have been reached if I had worked with an all-male cast.
Given my experiences as a child and adolescent, issues of sexuality were immediately
relevant and accessible to me. Working with women required me to look more deeply
at how gender interacts with sexuality. I came to realize that the constructs of gender
and sexuality are inextricably joined and used to justify the other. Working with
women also brought to the forefront ways in which gender, and similarly sexual
orientation, function as class systems. It became clear to me at the end of the process
that only by dismantling both binaries could either oppressed group hope to achieve
equality.
I realized that the question I set out to explore at the beginning of this project
(how does a young gay man growing up in twenty-first century America come to terms
with his identity in a culture dominated by compulsory heterosexuality and
heterosexual narratives?) was a minoritizing, misleading and ineffective question. By
working with women to explore issues of male homosexual identity, I realized that the
difficulties I faced growing up, and continue to face on a daily basis are not simply the
result of a cultural bias toward male homosexual identity, but the entire matrix of
gender/sexual identity in which we all exist, regardless of our adherence to norms and
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expectations regarding ones gender and sexual orientation. To quote Ethan, I realized
that “it’s not about homophobia, it’s bigger than that.”
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Appendix
The Script
83
The Poster
112
The Program
113
The Audition Letter
114
Performance Stills
116
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(The final draft of the script I adapted based on Joe Calarco’s Shaksespeare’s R&J)
(#1,3 enter and prepare for class)
CHASE HAWKINS(#1): Dominic, did you hear the kid who killed himself this weekend?
DOMINIC WARD(#3): No. What happened?
CHASE: Some 13 year old kid up in Weresometa hung himself in his closet this weekend because
he was getting teased about being gay. His mom found him when she went to wake him up.
DOMINIC: Whoa. Heavy stuff, dude.
CHASE: Maybe now people around here will finally start seeing how destructive homophobia can
be. It’s such a tragedy. (#4 enters, overhearing the last of #1’s words)
CHAD “MOOSE” WEINSTEIN (#4): Chase, stop crying like homo!
CHASE: Shut the fuck up Moose!
MOOSE: Yo, what was that assignment we were supposed to do for Biology?
DOMINIC: Researching an aspect of sexual selection?
MOOSE: Right, yea. That. Wanna help a brother out?
CHASE: Not really. You’re just gonna copy and paste from Wikipedia anyway.
MOOSE: So…
DOMINIC: Look up “ansiogamy”
MOOSE: Ha! Sounds like anal-sodomy. (#2 enters) Hey, Ethan.
ETHAN PALMER (#2): Hi.
DOMINC: Sup new kid. You excited for rehearsals to start, Moose?
MOOSE: Don’t even talk to me about that gay shit. Fuck Ms Butler. (Bells. They sit stiffly and
begin the school day)
ALL: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thou shalt not:
ETHAN: Lie!
MOOSE: Steal!
DOMINIC: Cheat!
CHASE: Kill!
ALL: Lust!
DOMINIC: (Praying) O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my
sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art
all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more
and to avoid the near occasions of sin.
ALL: Amen. (Bells. They make their way to the restroom and stand at urinals.)
MOOSE: Dude, I was watching Batman Returns last night; Oh my God, Michelle Pfeiffer is so
fucking hot! I don’t get how someone could be gay. I mean, how can Michelle Pfeiffer as
Catwoman not make you straight?
ETHAN: Just because Batman is a man and Catwoman is a woman doesn’t make their interactions
heterosexual: there is nothing straight about two people getting it on in rubber and latex costumes,
wearing eye-masks and carrying whips and other toys.
DOMINC: Are you serious?
ETHAN: No no no, think about it. When they are Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, nothing happens.
Plain old heterosexuality doesn’t work for them. But when they are in costume, that’s when things
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get sexy: They’re not man and woman: they are bat and cat, or latex and leather, or feminist and
vigilante.
MOOSE: You’re gay.
DOMINC: I didn’t know you were a comic book geek. How stoked are you for Tom Hardy to
play Bane? (They wander to their next class)
MOOSE: (Reading) Typically, it is the female of a species who has a larger investment in
producing each offspring. Angus John Bateman attributed the origin of the unequal investment to
ansiogamy, or the differences in the production of gametes: sperm are cheaper than eggs. By and
large, a male's potential reproductive success is limited by the number of females he mates with,
whereas a female's potential reproductive success is limited by how many eggs she can produce.
This results in sexual selection, in which males compete with each other, and females become
choosy in which males to mate with. As a result of ansiogamy, males are fundamentally
promiscuous, and females are fundamentally selective.
ALL: Amen. (Bells. They make their way to the restrooms and stand at urinals.)
CHASE: So you know how everyone always used to say that if you were a dude, you couldn’t
wear purple cause then you were gay? Well I was watching the Discovery Channel last night, and
they were saying that in the 90’s, red neckties were a symbol of power and masculinity for men
like politicians, lawyers, doctors, that kind of thing. But in the 1900’s, wearing a red necktie was a
way gay guys recognized each other… I guess so they could hook up or whatever… makes you
think, huh? (They wander to their next class.)
ETHAN: (Reading) Let us particularly note the differences in character between the two sexes, a
difference so great that one might suppose them members of two different races. It is a woman’s
responsibility to maintain the comfort and the decency of her family. It is she who makes etiquette,
and it is she who preserves the order and the decency of society. Without women, men soon
resume the savage state, and the comforts of the home are exchanged for the misery of the mining
camp. A bold man may disregard and disobey the most sacred laws and customs, but he cannot, he
dare not disregard a woman’s influence, for the amiable woman rules the haughty man. Hence the
business of a man is to govern the world and the destiny of a woman is to charm and influence it.
ALL: Amen. (Bells. They make their way to the restroom and stand at urinals.)
DOMINIC: I don’t get why anyone would want to come out of the closet. I mean, even if you like
other guys, after seeing those flaming queens on shows like the A-list, I don’t get why you would
want other people to associate you with people like that. Wouldn’t you be worried you wouldn’t
be taken seriously?
ETHAN: You watch the A-List?
MOOSE: Fag! (Dominic mumbles in protest as they wander to their next class)
CHASE: (Reading) My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire his death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
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At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
ALL: Amen. (Bells. They make their way to the restroom and stand at urinals.)
MOOSE: I can’t believe that Ms. Butler is making us do scenes from Romeo and Juliet. Hello!
This is an all-boys school! She can’t make us do this faggot-ass-shit! I’m telling you right now I
am NOT kissing any of you! I miss the days when they didn’t try to make us believe being a queer
was OK. Back in the day, when we were growing up, we didn’t have a choice. You watched
Disney movies, and they taught you the way things are supposed to be: Prince Charming gets with
Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin gets with Jasmine. God, even Romeo ends up with Juliet! Walt Disney
was a pretty smart guy after all. All this bullshit about “exploring the queer narrative” makes me
sick!
DOMINIC: You do know Walt Disney was a raging anti-Semite? Right?
CHASE: I don’t think he would have approved of you any more than he approves of the “queers,”
Chad Weinstein. And besides, back when Shakespeare wrote this, women weren’t allowed to be on
stage, so all the parts had to be played by men. So think of it as a traditional way to explore
compulsory heterosexual gender scripts.
MOOSE: (not comprehending) Fag. (The students wander to the rehearsal room, awkwardly
waiting for someone to make the first move)
DOMINIC: (searches script for what happens next) Act 1, scene 2 (#1 takes script and prepares
for the next scene, #3,4 relax) Did you hear about Australia still having a law that allows private
schools to expel students solely because they're gay? I can totally see Principal Wallace expelling
someone for being gay.
MOOSE: (Imitating the principal)This is a Christian school. Unless the child is prepared to accept
that it is chaste, that it is searching for alternatives as well, the school may decide that it might be
better for the child as well that he goes somewhere else. I think it's a loving response.
CHASE: (reading from a script)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;
Whole 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. (#1 offers the script to the others, daring them
to read from it. #3 accepts the dare)
DOMINIC: Draw thy tool, here comes of the house of Montagues. (#3 offers the script. #4 accepts
the dare.)
MOOSE: I strike quickly being moved. (#4 offers the script. #2 accepts the dare)
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ETHAN: To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away. (#1 grabs the script)
CHASE: A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will take the wall of any man or maid of
Montague's. (#1 throws script to #2)
ETHAN: That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall. (#2 throws script to #4)
MOOSE: Tis true, and women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore, I
will push Monatgue’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall. (#3 runs and grabs
script)
DOMINIC: I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men I will be civil with the
maids, I will cut off their heads. (#1 runs and grabs the script)
CHASE: Me they shall fell while I am able to stand, and ‘tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh!
DOMINIC: Quarrel. I will back thee. ( #4 provokes #1 into a shoving match)
#2(BENVOLIO): (grabbing the script) Part, fools! Put up your swords; you know not what you
do.
#4(TYBALT): What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.
#2(B): I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.
#4(T): What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
Have at thee, coward! (#4 again becomes belligerent)
CHASE: (#1 grabs script and imitates Principle Wallace. The other students do the same in
turn)Enter the Prince.
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,-Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins.
#4 (PRINCE): On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
#2(P): Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
#3(P): And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
ALL (P): Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
#1(ROMEO): Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
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What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
#2(B): I aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.
#1(R): A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.
#2(B): A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
#1(R): Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;
#2(B): Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
#1(R): She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
For beauty starved with her severity
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
#2(B): Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
#1(R): O, teach me how I should forget to think.
#2(B): By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.
This night at the ancient fest of Capulet’s sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so loves,
With all the admired beauties of Verona:
Go thither and with unattained eye
Compare her ace with some that I shall show
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
#1(R): When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire,
And these who, often drown’d, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.
#2(B): Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by.
Herself pois’d with herself in either eye.
But in that crystal scales let here be wiegh’d
Your Lady’s love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now seems best.
#1(R): I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
MOOSE: Gay! End of scene. (#1 pulls away from others)
#1(R): Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
#3(MERCUTIO): Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
#1(R): Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
#3(M): You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
#1(R): I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
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To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
Under love's heavy burden do I sink.
#3(M): And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
#1(R): Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
#3(M): If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Come, we burn daylight, ho!
#1(R): Nay, that's not so.
#3(M): I mean, sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.
#1(R): And we mean well in going to this mask;
But 'tis no wit to go.
#3(M): Why, may one ask?
#1(R): I dream'd a dream to-night.
#3(M): And so did I.
#1(R): Well, what was yours?
#3(M): That dreamers often lie.
#1(R): In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
#3(M): O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
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Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she-#1(R): Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
Thou talk'st of nothing.
#3(M): True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
#2(B): This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
#1(R): I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.
(somewhat deviously) Juliet’s bedchamber.
DOMINIC: Enter Lady Capulet (strikes a very stereotypical feminine pose)
MOOSE: Enter Nurse (strikes a very stereotypical feminine pose)
#3(LADY CAPULET): Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.
#4(NURSE): Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
I bade her come. (#3,4 are getting sillier and sillier with playing women)
#3(LC): Juliet?!!
#4(N): What, lamb. What ladybird.
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#3(LC): Juliet?!!
#4(N): God forbid. Where’s this girl?
#3(LC): What, Juliet?!! (They laugh. #2 reluctantly enters, clutching the script for security)
#2(JULIET): How now! who calls?
#4(N): Your mother.
#2(J): Madam, I am here. What is your will?
#3(LC): This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret: (Pause. He has difficulty taking the situation seriously and momentarily
breaks character) Ha! This is so weird--nurse, come back again;
I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.
Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.
#4(N): Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
#3(LC): She's not fourteen.
#4(N): I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,-And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four-She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
#3(LC): A fortnight and odd days.
#4(N): Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before, she broke her brow:
And then my husband--God be with his soul!
A' was a merry man--took up the child:
'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'
To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
I warrant, and I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'
#2(J): And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
#4(N): Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.
#3(LC): Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
#2(J): It is an honour that I dream not of.
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#4(N): An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
#3(LC): Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
#4(N): A man, young lady! Lady, such a man
As all the world--why, he's a man of wax.
#3(LC): Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
#4(N): Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
#3(LC): What say you? Can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,
Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
#2(J): I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
#3(LC): Juliet, the county stays. (exits)
#4(N): Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. (Students face each other to announce the next
scene)
ALL: The Ball (Students pair up. They go to hold each other in order to dance but stop and
remember) Thou shalt not. (They switch partners, only to remember) Thou shalt not. (They switch
partners, only to remember) Thou shalt not. (During this last shift #1 is left facing #2)
#1(R): Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
#4(T): (Shocked and uncomfortable with #1,2's intimacy searches for the script to find his place)
This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall
Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall. (Unable to watch the rest of the scene, #3,4 begin softly
chanting underneath #1,2)
DOMINIC/MOOSE: Man/Woman, Butch/Femme, Top/Bottom, Master/Slave,
Dominant/Submissive, Sadist/Masochist, Human/Animal, Adult/Child, Straight/Gay,
Chickenhawk/Virgin, Customer/Vendor, Penetrator/Penetrated, Observer/Object, Phallic/NonPhallic, Order/Chaos... (repeated as necessary)
#1(R): If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
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#2(J): Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
#1(R): Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
#2(J): Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
#1(R): O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
#2(J): Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
#1(R): Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. (They kiss.)
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
#2(J): Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
#1(R): Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again. (They kiss passionately. #4 breaks in)
MOOSE: What the fuck?! (Terrified, #1,2 stand at attention)
CHASE/ETHAN: Thou shalt not lie, steal, cheat, kill, lust. (A tense moment until #4 decides to
continue)
#4(N): Madam, your mother craves a word with you. (#2 goes to #4)
#1(R): Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe's debt.
#3(M): (going to #1) Romeo?!
#4(N): His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
The only son of your great enemy.
#2(J): My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.
MOOSE: Anon, anon!
Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.
End of scene. Jesus Christ, I need a fucking break. (They make their way to the restrooms and
stand at urinals) What the fuck was that shit in there? Ya know, I don’t think gay guys are real
men. I mean really: Men fuck and women get fucked. How can you be a man if you like a dick up
your ass? That shit's not right. (The students wander back to the rehearsal space)
CHASE: Act 2, scene 2. Capulet's orchard. The Balcony Scene.
#1(R): (reading from script) But, soft! what light thr-#3(M): (unable to watch a repeat of the previous scene) Romeo! humours! madman! passion!
lover!
#1(R): But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is th-#4(N): (interrupting) Madam!
#1(R): It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she--
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#3(M): Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
#2(J): If they do see thee they will murder thee.
#3(M): Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'
#2(J): I would not for the world they saw thee here.
#4(N): Madam!
#2(J): By and by I come- I do beseech thee
To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:
Tomorrow will I send.
#1(R): So thrive my soul#3(M): (pulling #1 away) I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie.
CHASE: Act 2. scene 3.
DOMINIC: What the fuck are you doing dude?
CHASE: Friar Laurence’s Cell. (Offers script)
#3(FRIAR): (nervously and even resentfully taking script) Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper'd head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.
#1(R): That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
#3(F): God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?
#1(R): With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;
I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.
#3(F): That's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?
#1(R): I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
#3(F): Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
#1(R): Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us to-day.
#3(F): Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.
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#1(R): Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.
#3(F): For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
#1(R): And bad'st me bury love.
#3(F): Not in a grave,
To lay one in, another out to have.
#1(R): I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
The other did not so.
#3(F): O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote and could not spell. (fed up and uncomfortable, he drops script and goes
to leave,)
CHASE: (desperate #3's approval to continue) Dominic, Please!
#3(F): (seeing that this is important to his friend, picks up script) But come, young waverer, come,
go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households' rancour to pure love.
CHASE: Thank you. A street in Verona. Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.
#3(M): Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a white wench's black eye; shot through
the ear with a
love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to
encounter Tybalt?
#2(B): Why, what is Tybalt?
#3(M): More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments. He
fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one,
two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a
gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause: ah, the immortal passado! the
punto reverso!
(#1,3 begin rough-housing, lasts most of their exchange)
#3(M): Signior Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the
counterfeit fairly last night.
#1(R): Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
#3(M): The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?
#1(R): Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in such a case as mine a man may strain
courtesy.
#3(M): That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
#1(R): Meaning, to court'sy.
#3(M): Thou hast most kindly hit it.
#1(R): A most courteous exposition.
#3(M): Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
#1(R): Pink for flower.
#3(M): Right.
#1(R): Why, then is my pump well flowered.
#3(M): Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, (#1 pins #3) Why, is
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not this better now than groaning for love? now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this driveling love is like a great natural, that
runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
(#4 enters to break up #1,3)
#1(R): Here's goodly gear! A sail, a sail!
#4(N): God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
#3(M): God ye good e’en, fair gentlewoman.
#4(N): Is it good e’en?
#3(M): 'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
#4(N): Out upon you! what a man are you!
#1(R): One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.
#4(N): By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,' quoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell
me where I may find the young Romeo?
#1(R): I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
#4(N): If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.
#2(B): She will endite him to some supper.
#3(M): A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!
#1(R): What hast thou found?
#3(M): Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to dinner thither.
#1(R): I will follow you.
#3(M): Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, (singing) 'lady, lady, lady.' (exit #2,3. #4 advances
aggressively on #1)
#4(N): Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you,
sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out; what she bade me say, I
will keep to myself: but first let me tell ye, (#4 grabs #1 by the throat, threatening) if ye should
lead her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say: for
the gentlewoman is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill
thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing. (turns to leave) Fucking faggot.
#1(R): Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I
protest unto thee-#4(N): (#4 wheals and grabs #1 by the throat) I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as
I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
#1(R): commend me to thy mistress.
#4(N): (leaving in disgust) Ay, a thousand times.
DOMINIC: Let's take a break. (They make their way to the restroom and stand at urinals)
MOOSE: Ha! Check this out. Apparently the faggot who killed himself yesterday wasn't even gay.
He just got bullied for being gay cause he wanted to be a cheerleader. What a queer-mo!
ETHAN: He was 13. How can anyone know something like whether or not when he is gay when
he was only 13?
CHASE: It's a tragedy is what it is. He must have felt so alone. (They wander back to the rehearsal
space)
DOMINIC: A public place. Enter Benvolio and Mercutio
#2(B): I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
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And, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.
#3(M): Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be
moody, and as soon moody to be moved. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the
street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun!
MOOSE: (looking at the script) Finally, some action.
#2(B): By my head, here come the Capulets.
#3(M): By my heel, I care not.
#4(T): Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.
#3(M): And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.
#4(T): You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me occasion.
#3(M): Could you not take some occasion without giving?
#4(T): Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,-- faggot!
#3(M): (angered) Fagg- Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of
us; look to hear nothing but discords.
#2(B): We talk here in the public haunt of men:
Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.
#3(M): Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze; I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.
Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort! (#1 enters)
#4(T): Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.
#3(M): But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:
Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;
Your worship in that sense may call him 'man.'
#4(T): Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford
No better term than this,--thou art a villain.
#1(R): Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting: villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not. (Starts to exit)
#4(T): Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.
#1(R): I do protest, I never injured thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise,
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:
And so, good Capulet,--which name I tender
As dearly as my own,--be satisfied.
#3(M): O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!
Alla stoccata carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk? (#3,4 begin circling and shoving)
#4(T): What wouldst thou have with me?
#3(M): Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives!
#4(T): I am for you.
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#1(R): Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
#3(M): Come, sir, your passado.
#1(R): Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath
Forbidden bandying in Verona streets:
Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio! (#1 grabs #3. #4 seizes the opportunity and punches #3. All stop,
shocked)
#3(M): I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.
#2(B): What, art thou hurt?
#3(M): Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.
#1(R): Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
#3M): No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask
for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A
plague o' both your houses! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.
#1(R): I thought all for the best.
#3(M): A plague o' both your houses!
They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,
And soundly too: A plague on both your houses! (#3 exits)
#1(R): This day's black fate on more days doth depend;
This but begins the woe, others must end. (confronting #4)
Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again,
That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company:
Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.
#4(T): Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence.
#1(R): This shall determine that. (#1 hits #4)
#2(B): (stopping #1 from doing further damage) Romeo, away, be gone!
#1(R): O, I am fortune's fool!
#2(B): Why dost thou stay? (pushes #1 off. #4 rises and grabs the script. #3 enters with fervor)
#4(P): Where are the vile beginners of this fray?
#3(LC): O my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true, For blood of ours, shed blood of
Montague.
#4(P): Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?
#3(LC): I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.
#2(B): Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio's friend;
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.
#4(P): And for that offense
ALL: Immediately we do exile him hence:
#4(P): I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
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Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
Therefore use none:
ALL: let Romeo hence in haste,
#4(P): Else, when he's found, that hour is his last.
ETHAN: We should take 5, I think. (All but #1 make their way to the restroom and stand at
urinals) A gay man who lived in Khartoum, took a lesbian up to his room. They argued all night,
over who had the right to do what, and with what, to whom. (No one is amused. They wander back
to the rehearsal space)
#2(J): (picking up script) Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
O, here comes my nurse, (#4 does not move)
O, here comes my nurse,
MOOSE: I'm getting real sick of this faggot bullshit.
Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone!
Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!
#2(J): Can heaven be so envious?
#4(N): Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!
Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!
#2(J): O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
#4(N): O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead!
#2(J): What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?
My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?
#4(N): Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.
#2(J): O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?
#4(N): It did, it did; alas the day, it did!
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#2(J): O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
#4(N): There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo! (He is so frustrated he leaves to do homework. Anything to get away from
the play )
#2(J): Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;'
That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
But with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.
DOMINIC:(Hoping to make amends with #1, takes script) Act 3. scene 3. Friar Laurence’s cell.
Chase, come here. (#1 enters)
CHASE: (nervously) I... I'm sorry
#3(F): Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:
#1(R): Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?
#3(F): A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,
Not body's death, but body's banishment.
#1(R): Ha, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death: do not say 'banishment.'
#3(F): This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.
#1(R): 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives
#3(F): Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.
#1(R): O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
#3(F): I'll give thee armour to keep off that word:
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
#1(R): Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
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It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
#3(F): O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
#1(R): How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
#3(F): Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
#1(R): Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
O, tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
#3(F): Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
#1(R): But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell. Act 2. scene 2. The Balcony scene!(#1,2 kneel
facing each other, reading from the script) But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she where.
#2(J): O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
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And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
#1(R): Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
#2(J): 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
#1(R): (Taking script and setting it aside) I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
#2(J): What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night
So stumblest on my counsel?
#1(R): By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
#2(J): My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: (Finally looks at #1)
Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?
#1(R): Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.
#2(J): O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,
And therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,
My true love's passion: therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.
#1(R): Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops-#2(J): O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
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Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
#1(R): What shall I swear by?
#2(J): Do not swear at all;
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I'll believe thee.
#1(R): If my heart's dear love-#2(J): Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!
This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast!
#1(R): O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
#2(J): What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?
#1(R): The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.
#2(J): I gave thee mine before thou didst request it:
And yet I would it were to give again.
#1(R): Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?
#2(J): But to be frank, and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
CHASE/ETHAN: My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite. (#1,2 simulate the consummation of Romeo and Juliet's
wedding. #3,4 chant softly, trying to avoid the scene)
DOMINIC/MOOSE: Man/Woman, Butch/Femme, Top/Bottom, Master/Slave,
Dominant/Submissive, Sadist/Masochist, Human/Animal, Adult/Child, Straight/Gay,
Chickenhawk/Virgin, Customer/Vendor, Penetrator/Penetrated, Observer/Object, Phallic/NonPhallic, Order/Chaos... (repeated as necessary. Exhausted, #1,2 lie in each other’s arms. #1
awakens, kisses #2 on cheek and goes to leave)
#2(J): Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
#1(R): It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
#2(J): Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
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And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone. (They begin kissing passionately)
#1(R): Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay than will to go:
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend. (exits)
#2(J): Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.
That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.
DOMINIC: I need to take a break. (They make their way to the restroom and stand at urinals)
MOOSE: Ethan, are you like... gay now?
ETHAN: No! I... I don't know. It's... it's like in Tarot cards, the suit of Swords is the suit of
naming, separating things out. But it's also the suit of ruin, despair, and bad luck. Maybe that's
what you get when you mess around with categorizing everything (#4 is horrified by this response.
They wander back to the rehearsal space)
#3(LC): (reading script) Act 3. scene 3. Ho, daughter! are you up?
#2(J): Madam, I am not well.
#3(LC): Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.
#2(J): Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it;
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him named, and cannot come to him.
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that slaughter'd him!
#3(LC): Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
#2(J): And joy comes well in such a needy time:
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
#3(LC): Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.
#2(J): Madam, in happy time, what day is that?
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#3(LC): Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,
The gallant, young and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
#2(J): Now, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo.
I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!
#3(LC): Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands. (#4 rushes in and graps the script, having been working
himself up ever since #2 responded as he did in the restroom)
#4(C): Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face:
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
My fingers itch. God's bread! it makes me mad:
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match'd: and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,
I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'
But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will you shall not house with me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.
CHASE: Chill the fuck out Moose! (#4 exits)
#2(J): Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
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Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
#3(LC): (afraid and confused) Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. (exits. #4, now calmer, turns back to the scene)
#2(J): O God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented?
What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, nurse.
#4(N): Faith, here it is.
Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,
That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the county.
O, he's a lovely gentleman!
Romeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.
#2(J): Speakest thou from thy heart?
#4(N): And from my soul too; Or else beshrew them both.
#2(J): Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession and to be absolved.
#4(N): Marry, I will; and this is wisely done. (exits)
#2(J): Go, counsellor;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy: (enter #3, an awkward moment passes)
#3(F): Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this county.
#2(J): Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
#3(F): Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution.
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris,
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Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That copest with death himself to scape from it:
And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.
#2(J): O, bid me go into a new-made grave
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
#3(F): Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
Each part, deprived of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
#2(J): Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!
#3(F): Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord. (exists)
#2(J): Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,
Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--
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O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
And madly play with my forefather's joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee. (#1,3,4 also fall asleep while vocalizing 4 breaths)
#1(R): (awakening with a start) I dreamt my lady came and found me dead-Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!-And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,
That I revived, and was an emperor.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!
#3(F): Friar John. (#4 turns to face #3) Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
#4(FRIAR JOHN): (paying more attention to his cellphone than the scene) Going to find a barefoot brother out
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.
#3(F): Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
#4(FJ): I could not send it
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
#3(F): Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice but full of charge
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. (turns reluctantly to #1)
#1(R): News from Verona!--How now, Balthasar!
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.
#3(BALTHASAR): Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
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O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
#1(R): Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?
#3(Bz): No, my good lord
#1(R): Get thee gone,
And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight. (#3 exits)
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's see for means: O mischief, thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,-- (#4 enters)
#4(APOTHECARY): (handing #1 a vial and script with satisfaction) Put this in any liquid thing
you will,
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.
#1(R): Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
(#3 begins to read the names of bullied teens while #1 reads script)
#1(R): For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Ah, dear Juliet...
DOMINIC: Seth Walsh, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Tyler Clementi, Zach Harrington, Aiyisha
Hassa
#1(R): ... Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love! (drinks) O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. (kisses #2) Thus with a kiss I die. (falls. #3 enters)
#3(F): Fear comes upon me:
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing. (sees #1)
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Romeo! O, pale! Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
The lady stirs. (#2 awakens)
#2(J): O comfortable friar! where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
#3(F): I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
Come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns:
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
Come, go, good Juliet, I dare no longer stay. (exits)
#2(J): What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm.
Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagg- Fuck this I’m not going to do this! I don’t get why
they both have to kill themselves.
CHASE: What is your problem, this is tragic and beautiful.
ETHAN: Beautiful? Did you pay attention to the number of times Romeo says beautiful in this
play? He has this intelligent, strong, brave, independent woman who loves him, and all he can do
is talk about how he likes the way she looks.
MOOSE: You’re reading way too into this. She’s just some bitch who kills herself when things
don’t go her way.
DOMINIC: Shut up Moose! You’re macho, we get it.
CHASE: You've gotta get over you're stupid obsession with the idea that masculinity is somehow
worth something. It’s sad.
MOOSE: Fuck you. I am a man. I’m not a cock-sucker. I’m not a fucking faggot!
CHASE: Stop using that word! I don’t even know what you think it means anymore. You can’t
just call anyone who doesn’t act the way you want them to a fag! It just gets old!
DOMINIC: Guys, stop it! Let’s just get this over with so we can be done with it.
CHASE: No! It’s just like Romeo and Juliet, hiding from yourself will only make things worse.
It’s not until they take action without fear of the consequences that they are truly united. They
sacrifice themselves for love of each other and their families.
DOMINC: Well maybe I don’t want to be some kind of sacrifice so other people can be happy!
Maybe I want to be happy without having to worry that my actions are going to “mean” something.
I don’t want to have to declare myself as something just so other people can think they know
something about me.
CHASE: But this play can help us find our voice!
ETHAN: Why are you so in love with this play? Why are you glorifying teen suicide like it’s this
noble thing? These people aren’t martyrs, they’re victims.
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CHASE: Exactly! They're told all their lives that to be gay is to fail at being a real person! That’s
tragic!
ETHAN: Those kids didn’t get bullied cause they necessarily liked boys, they got bullied cause
they had high voices, or were bad at sports, or wore tight pants and purple shirts. It’s not about
ending homophobia, it’s bigger than that. You all have to stop thinking that all these polaropposites you've categorized the world into actually mean anything! Fuck this, I'm done! (stunned
and deep in thought, all wander silently to the urinal. Bells. They wander to their next class)
CHASE: (reading) And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
DOMINIC: (reading) God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to
change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying
one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful
world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to
His Will; ALL: Amen (Bells, they move to their next class)
MOOSE: (reading) Olivia Judson argues that Bateman's principle is incorrect for such a large
percentage of species that it should no longer be considered a valid principle. For example, the
female seahorse inserts her ovipositor into the male’s brood pouch and deposits dozens to
thousands of eggs. As the female releases her eggs, her body slims while his swells. Both animals
then sink back into the sea grass
and she swims away.
ALL: Amen (Bells, they move to their next class)
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
ALL: Amen (Bells, they move to their next class)
ETHAN: It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue;
but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord
the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs
no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no
epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes,
and good plays prove the better by the help of good
epilogues. (addressing audience)
What a case am I in then, that am
neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with
you in the behalf of a good play! I am not
furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not
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become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin
with the women.
MOOSE: I charge you, O women, for the love
you bear to men, to like as much of this play as
please you:
DOMINIC: and I charge you, O men, for the love
you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering,
none of you hates them--that between you and the
women the play may please.
CHASE: If I were a woman I
would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased
me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I
defied not:
ETHAN: and, I am sure, as many as have good
beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my
kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
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(The poster to advertise the performances)
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Kopciak 113
Kopciak 114
(In lieu of a program, the following was taped to a chalk board in the performance
space)
THANK YOU: Dr. Jordan Schildcrout and Rebecca
Vernooy, for your invaluable wisdom and guidance;
Sarah Stevens, for acting as my “Gender Consultant”
and confidante;
Eric Lynch, for putting up with all the bitching and
moaning;
Steve Ross, for doing a friend a solid;
David Haugen, Barbra Fiocchi, Tom Fiocchi, Treva
Nichols and the rest of the OU School of Theatre for
your support;
Dean Jeremy Webster, WTF Condee, and the HTC for
being my justification for this project;
The Office of the Provost, for funding this project;
Dr. Lauren McMills, Rollie Merryman, and the Ohio
University Chemistry Department for your generosity
and hospitality;
My talented cast, for your eagerness and dedication;
And all my family and friends, whom I love and cherish,
for inspiring this project (and hopefully many more)!
Kopciak 115
(The letter I sent to all those interested in auditioning for my thesis project)
Thank you so much for expressing interest in being a part of my Thesis! As
you prepare your sides, I thought it would be a good idea to give you a little
background information on what the project is, and what I am looking for with the
characters.
My project will be an exploration of sexuality and gender construction and
performance through the rehearsal process and ultimate production of Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet, adapted by Joe Calarco. In Calarco’s adaptation, four male actors
play four boys in an all-boys’ Catholic school. The students find, and begin to
perform, Romeo and Juliet. The tension created by the budding romance of the “starcrossed lovers” in Shakespeare’s text mirrors the tension created on stage when both
the audience and actors become uncomfortable with two men playing the archetypical
heterosexual couple.
I hypothesize that, like Judith Butler and other prominent contemporary social
theorists, we (the cast and I) will find that gender is more “performative” (to use
Butler’s term) than essential in nature, meaning that gender is not a concrete
phenomenon with specific and universal qualities, but rather a set of qualities humans
perform for others as a result of social expectations. To further emphasize this point, I
plan on casting a female actress to play one of the four male parts in the play (though
not Romeo or Juliet, as I feel the homosexual tension between the infamous lovers is
pivotal to the project). I hope to draw attention to the performative (and therefore
socially constructed, rather than inherent) nature of gender by having a female actress
play a man playing men and women in an “all male” adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
The most important thing to remember as an actor in this show is that the
character you will be playing is one of the four school boys first and foremost, and that
these school boys are in turn playing the characters in Shakespeare’s play. Whether
you are a male of female actor, your primary job over the course of the rehearsal
process is to develop a distinct and dynamic personality for the young man you are
playing, so that we can layer Shakespeare’s characters on top. Below is a character
breakdown of which school boy plays which of Shakespeare’s characters, and some
preliminary ideas I have about each character. These ideas are very preliminary,
however, and I encourage you to deviate from this if you have a strong choice that
differs from what I have provided below:
Student 1- Romeo. I see Student 1 as the most sexually progressive character in the
show. I do not believe he has ever considered himself “gay” prior to falling for
Student 2 (Juliet), and even after falling for him, I think he would refrain from labeling
himself. Rather, he is simply open to intimacy (sexually and otherwise) with anyone
he is attracted to, regardless of sex or gender. He is also the charismatic force that sets
the play in motion, as in Calarco’s adaptation, Student 1 uses the opening prologue
from Romeo and Juliet to incite the other students to act out the play with him.
Kopciak 116
Student 2- Juliet, Benvolio. I see him as something of an “all-American” type;
compassionate, down-to-earth, strong, and secure. I also see him as considering
himself “straight,” and therefore being surprised by his feelings for Student 1
(Romeo). He is also sensitive and emotionally open, as it is Juliet, more than any
other character, that muses on the nature of love and the complexity of her forbidden
love for Romeo.
Student 3- Mercutio, Lady Capulet, Friar Laurence. This is likely to be the role that I
will cast our female actress as, but it is important to remember that Student 3 is a
young man, that Mercutio and Friar Laurence are men, and that Lady Capulet is a
woman being played by a man. I believe Student 3 represents “appropriate” or
socially acceptable relationships between men. This is complicated, however, by the
fact that Mercutio has feelings for Romeo which are not socially acceptable(though
not necessarily sexual), and by the fact that Student 3 is played by a woman.
Student 4- Tybalt, the Nurse, Lord Capulet, Balthasar, the Apothecary. I see him as the
voice of tradition and strict definitions of sexuality and gender. He is the most violent
student, and the one least accepting of the relationship between Students 1 and 2. He
is hyper-masculine (possibly to compensate for secret feelings he has that he believes
are very un-masculine), and his portrayal of the Nurse is a parody of femininity that he
believes is inferior to his machismo.
Please be aware that due to the nature of this project, during the auditions we
will be discussing your views on gender and sexuality. Some of the questions that I
ask may be very personal. At any time, if you do not feel comfortable answering a
question, or feel that a change in subject is necessary, please say so. Also, be aware
that in addition to myself, my assistant director/dramaturge Sarah Stevens and a reader
will be in the room. You have my solemn promise that no one in the room will judge
anything that you say, and absolutely nothing will leave the audition room that you do
not wish to. This project depends on everyone feeling comfortable and safe expressing
their feelings regarding a very sensitive and personal topic. This sense of safety and
non-judgment will be my top priority, beginning with auditions. If you have any
questions about the show or auditions, please feel free to contact me by email
([email protected]) or by phone (571-276-5294).
I look forward to seeing you on Saturday!
Kopciak 117
Chloe Mockensturm as Ethan shares a laugh with Jessica Link as Dominic
Emily Lerer shows off as Moose
Krista Cickovskis as Chase relieves himself at a “urinal”
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The “Urinal Scenes”
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The “Book Reports”
Dominic leads the Act of Contrition
Ethan reads his
report on the
differences
between men
and women
Ethan reads Sonnet
147 aloud to the class
Moose stumbles over the topic of his research paper
Kopciak 120
(left) Chase and Ethan share a
significant look as Chase
reads Sonnet 147
(right) Chase as
Romeo complains
to Ethan as
Benvolio about
Rosaline
(top) Chase urges Ethan to
continue with the Balcony
Scene
(bottom) Later in the reprised
Balcony Scene, Chase and Ethan
have an intimate moment
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Dominic and Moose look on
in horror as Chase and Ethan
as Romeo and Juliet kiss for
the first time
(top) Dominic and Moose imitating women as Lady Capulet and the Nurse while Ethan
as Juliet looks on nervously
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Ethan as Juliet lies unconscious while Moose as the Apothecary gives
poison to Romeo
(top and right) the actors let
their hair down in the final
moment of the show