Romeo and Who?

On February 7 I attended the play Romeo y Julieta put on by the BYU Young Company. After hearing the name of the play, I was interested in how the play would be portrayed. I thought that speaking in Spanish and English helped to further define the feud between the Montague's and the Capulet's. One thing I noticed that I did not particularly like about the play was the added music and sound effects.

I found it interesting that the performers decided to take a Shakespeare play and transform it into a Spanish-English mix. At first I was not sure I was going to like this, mostly because I do not understand that much Spanish, but throughout the hour-long play I actually liked it. It helped to define the line between who was a Montague and who was a Capulet. The Capulet's are the ones who spoke the most Spanish and the Montague's spoke mostly English. Since the play is targeted towards young children, I thought this might be confusing, however, this bilingual dialogue helps the story make more sense.

At many points during the play, the actors would create background music by stomping, pounding, whistling, and singing. I can see that they were trying to create a certain mood for what was happening during the play, but I found it quite distracting. At times it was hard to even hear what the actor was saying because of the background noise. I think it would have been more appropriate to use them less rather than more to create more of a dramatic effect.