Shakespeare in the Seventies at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
Shakespeare has been adapted in film, literature, and its references still make their way into media as we know it. I was fortunate enough to go see a production of Romeo and Juliet with my upper-level Shakespeare class at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. The production was adapted for the 70's, specifically 1975. Through costumes, added disco breaks, periodic news broadcasts from the 70s in between scenes, as well as subtle references to the tensions of the 70's, racial divides, and civil rights movements, Romeo and Juliet becomes a play that is more than a simple love story. The feud between families that audiences have grown accustomed to is heightened by making Romeo's father the chief of police, and Juliet's family a group of black activists. Some 70's lingo was peppered throughout, and while it did seem to contrast Shakespeare's writing, the cast truly trusted all of the language tha...
