The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.364  Friday, 22 August 2014

 

From:        JD Markel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         August 22, 2014 at 12:34:07 AM EDT

Subject:    Re: Romeo and Juliet in Harlem

 

 Notes on festival screening of film Romeo and Juliet in Harlem:

 

On July 9 director-(co)screenwriter Aleta Chappelle notified the SHAKSPER forum her new film, Romeo and Juliet in Harlem (2014),  would be shown July 16 as an entrant in the Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles. I took up the invite, and am glad I did so. I liked the film very much. 

 

To start small, but with an item I think evidences the film’s worthiness for close attentions, the film creates a new character taking over a portion of Nurse’s lines. After Romeo and Juliet’s first kiss Nurse interrupts, “Madam, your mother craves a word with you.” RJ 1.5.112. This line, and six more through which Nurse tells Romeo that Juliet is a Capulet, are assumed by a male security guard. Juxtaposed with a door, the scene transforms the quirky ally of Juliet into a serious agent of her father, symbolizing a barrier to overcome. For me, this made complete sense cinematically, and I did not recognize the change until hours after seeing it. I later contacted Aleta. She told me Nurse was altered here, “to make Romeo more self-conscious, nervous.” She felt these lines “just didn’t suit Nurse well.” She was “very determined to stay loyal to the text,” with only the minor changes of the word “banishment” to “imprisonment,” and “Mantua” to “Canada.”  Also, Benvolio becomes Benvolia.

 

The film is certainly cinematic, not a videoed stage production. This is Aleta’s fifth film directing effort. She is a stage and casting director too, and toured one year acting with the New Shakespeare Company of San Francisco. She is currently working on a wide theatrical release for RJ in Harlem, which it deserves. But she also crafted it to appeal as a teaching tool in schools. I think it is well suited for such use, surely over the 2013 RJ and 1996 R “+” J films. RJ in Harlem has one commonality with Zefferelli’s 1968 film version which I have not experienced in any other film or stage production: in both of these films I believed Romeo and Juliet were actually in love with each other. The RJ in Harlem pair appear enthralled with each other.  They make a great pair. Also appealing, Aleta’s film presents the only RJ party scene I would have liked to attend myself. No grotesqueries, no overproduction. 

 

The film’s language of color is notable. Sometimes vivid, others black and white and gray. The film was produced under a SAG ultra low budget agreement, yet the cinematography of the botanic garden scene alone itself look like a million bucks. Early vibrant scenes include the clothing of Juliet and her mother and street scenes of colorful Caribbean-flavored festivals spiced with the flags of Grenada and Venezuela. The film’s color peaks with Juliet delivering lines 3.2.1-31 (“Gallop apace . . .”) at New York Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden. Aleta says the scene is “homage to the garden,” a place she says she loves and not many people know about. The Capulets in general, except for the dark ending, are colorfully presented. Everyone else is dressed in black. Aleta says this was her strategy, “beauty contrasted with tragedy.” I asked her about Romeo’s motion at  2.3.94, whereat Friar Laurence says, “Wisely and slow . . .” The audience laughed at this enjoyably. Aleta says it was, “a happy accident, something wonderful, totally unplanned, and made on the first take,” one of several interesting occurrences that transpired during filming.

 

Geographically, Aleta says the film is an “homage to Harlem.” For one, the location whereat Peter delivers the party invitation list “was shot in front of the Langston Hughes brownstone.” But some scenes made me think of next-door New Jersey. Capulet’s big home for one; I thought of the television show The Sopranos. Friar Laurence’s garden is not full of “baleful weeds and precious juiced flowers,” but bright red tomatoes, inviting me to think of The Godfather’s tomato patch. I know that “Jersey tomatoes” have a certain culinary cachet for New Yorkers, but several scenes inside New York City I imagine have special recognition value for locals.

 

Stand-out characterizations included the quirky-goofy Nurse and the personal space-invading Mercutio. He was truly mercurial and edgily menacing, like one or two real people I have known and learned to avoid in life. Juliet, played by Jasmine Carmichael, is incredibly adorable and charming. This is her first film. She is a recent graduate of Rutgers, including one year with the Rutgers Conservatory at the Globe in London. Aleta interviewed 60 actresses for the role, and six of them came for that school, which she thought reflected impressively on the program. But the preeminent screen presence belonged to Harry Lennix as Capulet. He was Aaron in 1999 film Titus, and Aleta says, “he is one of the most brilliant men I know,” and, “the greatest living American Shakespearean actor.” Strong and in control throughout RJ in Harlem, Lennix looks like he actually knows how to keep hot-headed teenagers cool at a party. At scene 3.5 wherein Capulet argues with Juliet over marriage, the crowd in the theater gasped. His performance was enrapturing. With the film’s end the show rapidly moved to a live ceremony for Lennix himself. After some non-film related technical glitches by which he revealed himself to be successfully adept at making humorous off-the-cuff comments, and successively so as the glitches persevered, Lennix was presented the festival’s Independent Film Pioneer Award. He made a great speech, which garnered roaring applause. The whole scene was quite a show, and I am grateful to have attended it. 

 

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