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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 4, 1996)
Photo courtesy of twentieth century fox CLARE DANES, left, and Leonardo DiCaprio star in Twentieth Century Fox’s new production of “William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.” Present-day ‘Romeo’ doesn’t work By Cuff Hicks Film Critic If you hear about the British Isles sinking because of an earthquake — you’re probably not hallucinating. The sudden seismic activity comes from Shakespeare’s grave. The idea sounds interesting enough on paper: Update Shakespeare’s time less classic into modem times. “West Side Story” does a marvel ous job of transplanting the star crossed lovers into a modern time (well, the 1950s) but this... this “Will iam Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” is something else. See, the dialogue is, for the most part, the same. Sure, they nixed about a third of the original text, but this Shakespeare guy’s dead anyway, right? Thinking like that litters the entire film. When English teachers told direc tor Baz Luhrmann about “Romeo and Juliet” in high school, he must not have been paying attention. When they said it was a tragedy, they were referring to the story, not the production. Every single scene in this film con tains hyper-editing: the sudden shift ing of camera angles, the 500-foot zoom in 1.2 seconds, etc. This is what happens when you try to do Shakespeare in a modem style of filmmaking. Tons of people will think they’ve gotten a real taste of Shakespeare and what they’ve really gotten is a misshapen version of the original text. Yuck. Maybe if you want to see “Romeo and Juliet” done in the style of the Beastie Boys’ video “Sabotage,” you’ll like this film. But not I. None of the performances, save one, are very good. Leonardo DiCaprio’s interpretation of Romeo isn’t bad, but can’t capture the drive or the passion of Shakespeare’s charac ter. Gare Danes’ performance as Juliet is pretty shallow itself. At the finale of the film, she’s about as convincing as an infomercial. Even John Leguizamo, who put on a fantastic performance in “To Wong Foo...,” doesn’t do justice to Tybalt, the evil Prince of Cats who is Romeo’s nemesis. Only Harold Perrineau’s portrayal of Mercutio, Romeo’s friend and con fidant, holds any substance. Even though Perrineau is a lot like comedian Chris Rock, his deliverance of Shakespeare’s words is actually quite impressive. Of course, some of the best lines were cut from the production as well. Sure, the film needed to be shorter, but the selection of lines cut wasn’t care fully done. Film: “William Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet” Director: Baz Luhrmann Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Clare Danes, John Leguizamo Rating: PG-13 (violence) Grade: D Five Words: Shakespeare? Ha! I think not! Worst of all, this isn’t really an up dating. Too many things don’t fit in with today’s time, no matter where you set the story. To truly update Shakespeare, the smartest thing is to forget the bard’s dialogue and work with his plot outline. The sad part is that this will be a lot of people’s only theatrical exposure to Shakespeare—and that hurts. It will probably, and unfortunately, be fiti mensely popular. If they had removed Shakespeare’s name and rewritten all the dialogue, I would have had more respect for it, instead of it being like this. This film wounds me, and to quote a missing line of the text: “’Tis not as wide as a well, nor as deep, but t’will do.” Bite your thumb at this film and say thee NAY! Cast masters post-Hohcaust illustration MAIDEL from page 12 receive the depth and attention that the previous portrayal of young love re ceived. The intensity Gaither-Hayes and Hurst were both capable of was best seen in the list scene. In this scene, the two compare lists they have compiled of family members who have died dur ing the Holocaust. An especially dra matic moment occurs when Lusia speaks of the death of her child.. The dramatic power of Camperud was evident toward the end of the sec ond act when Rose is read a letter from her mom. With a few words and mere body language, Camperud created per haps the most powerful moment in the show. The music during the dream scenes was at times melodramatic, but helped to separate the dream sequences from the rest of the show. The setting, while providing an in timate atmosphere to the performance, created poor sight lines at times. When Mordechai finally turns to see Lusia enter after having not seen her since she was a child, a third of the audience missed the play of emotions on his face. The show will continue Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Stu dio Theater in the Temple Building. Tickets are $6 for students and $ 10 for the public. 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