Romeo & Juliet with a new touch

Where art thou, Romeo? Where art thou, Juliet?

No, when yet another staging of William Shakespeare’s classic love story Romeo & Juliet opens tomorrow night at the Teatro Aguinaldo (AFP Theater), you won’t be hearing such "art thou" and similar lines from the original play. Instead, lost in her thoughts, Juliet will wonder aloud in more familiar, contemporary terms and say, "Where are you, Romeo, my Romeo?"

That, among others, is what’s new about this Romeo & Juliet and what sets it apart from the countless other versions mounted onstage and dramatized on the big screen (first by Franco Zeffirelli with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey and then by Baz Luhrmann with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes) – that is, aside from its lead actors who claim to have been cast "against type," Yan Yuzon, 27, as Romeo and Ina Feleo, 20, as Juliet.

"Ours is a ‘contemporarized’ version," said Dr. Ricardo Abad (artistic director of Tanghalang Ateneo and Metropolitan Theater Guild Asia) who’s directing it. "It’s not strictly Elizabethan English but it’s still the poetry of Shakespeare spoken more comfortably. The pacing is faster, as if it’s ‘edited for TV,’ with one small scene after another. It’s also peppered with Filipino nuances, like the popularity of basketball and the use of arnis in lieu of swords as weapons. Also, I use a few ‘visual jabs’ that attempt to take the play out of its literal context and make a symbolic and mythic statement in the course of a normal realistic situation. So if you see some monks with candles and an angel hovering above a corner of the stage even if it’s not related to an ongoing scene, that’s a mythic symbol."

For sure, Shakespeare wouldn’t rise from his grave and haunt Abad and his actors for injecting those changes into the play, not the way Hamlet is haunted ("To be or not to be, that is the question") in another Shakespeare classic. Dear William would even be glad to know that the play is being brought closer to a new generation of theater-goers on their own terms, in a language they can easily appreciate and identify with.

Steven Uy, president of Metropolitan Theater Guild Asia and executive producer, said he’s using the production to mount a pipe dream, the MET Academic Partnerships (MAP), which is a campaign that seeks to contribute to the development of campus theater in the country.

"A lot of talent thrives in the high schools and colleges and it’s exciting to engage these young people in lectures, grants and stage festivals so that watching or acting in a stage play would become a preferred pursuit," added Uy who was encouraged by last year’s staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which was, he stressed, "an artistic success."

More than 100 auditioned for the roles of Romeo and Juliet.

"I was cast against type," said Yan, a "veteran" of more than 50 plays in the 15 years he has been acting in theater, starting at age 12 when he joined the Children’s Theater in Ateneo where he graduated with a degree in AB Social Science. "I’m more at home in anti-hero roles, I’m the perennial villain. I could have done Tybalt, you know, and it’s a challenge for me to be doing Romeo because, unlike good boy Romeo, I look like a bad person."

Actually, he is not, even if he described himself as "an actor rebelliously," one who loves "defying conventions."

An alumnus of Tanghalang Ateneo and a founding member of the Metropolitan Theater Guild, Yan is multi-talented. He writes for the ABS-CBN show Going Bulilit, plays the guitar (has been doing so since he was nine years old) for Ely Buendia’s new band Pupil (coming after the short-lived Mongol) and, besides acting and directing, teaches Theater Direction at the Ateneo Loyola School of Humanities for the Fine Arts Department.

"Ina was my student on my first semester of teaching," said Yan who describes their Romeo & Juliet as "more of a Juliet play than a Romeo play."

So how is it being pitted with her teacher?

"Exciting," said Ina, "and challenging."

The name Ina Feleo doesn’t ring bells just yet. But if told that she’s one of the two daughters (the other, Ana, is an opera singer) of movie greats Johnny Delgado (son of director Ben Feleo, in case you didn’t know) and actress-director Laurice Guillen, you’d sit up and say, "Is that so?" and would want to find out how Ina is measuring up to her parents’ sterling artistic records/achievements.

A gymnast, Ina has performed with the Bayanihan Dance Troupe and was in the cast of the GMA soap Kahit Kailan which she quit after one year because it was getting in the way of her Creative Writing studies at Ateneo. She was in Tanghalang Ateneo’s Lam-Ang and in an opera (where she appeared as a prostitute in not more than four scenes). Romeo & Juliet is her third and definitely more demanding theater role.

"In Lam-ang," said Ina who’s a carbon-copy of her mom, "I didn’t have any dialogue; all I did was dance. In Romeo & Juliet, I’m in all the scenes, kaya matindi ang pressure."

She’s up to the "demands" of and the "pressures" from the role, don’t worry, she being the sum total of the best traits of her famous and talented parents.

What has she learned from her parents?

"From my mom, discipline. She always reminds me to memorize my lines and study my character well. Also, she teaches me how to conduct myself during rehearsals. My dad naman keeps on reminding me to just take it easy. You see, I sometimes get so uptight so my dad tells me to relax, believe in myself and, he says, ‘Maglaro ka lang.’ I always bear that in mind."

With dance and theater as her passion, will Ina eventually follow in her parents’ footsteps and venture into the movies?

"Maybe," she said, "not to act but to direct movies."

Until tonight when they will have the gala premiere, Yan and Ina have been rehearsing for five months, starting with endless readings, and followed by endless memorizing of lines and rehearsals.

Asked what her favorite scene is, Ina said, "Besides the death scene, I love the balcony scene, kasi there’s a surprise." (Find out for yourselves.)

And what, you wonder, is Yan’s favorite scene?

"Of course, the death scene," he smiled. "After the readings and the rehearsals and the run-through, when we reach the death scene I heave a big sigh of relief and assure myself, ‘Finally, you can rest!’"

(Note: Romeo & Juliet goes onstage Jan. 13, 14, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31, and Feb. 1, 2, 3 and 4 at 8 p.m. and on Jan. 26 at 3 p.m. at the AFP Theater, Camp Emilio Aguinaldo, EDSA, Quezon City. For inquiries, call Steven Uy at 0928-4001219.)

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