Story ‘still needs to be told’: 5 things to know about Idaho Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Idaho Shakespeare Festival opens it production of “Romeo and Juliet” this weekend. Truly is one of The Bard’s most affecting tragedies, it’s filled with riotous comedy, and the joy of first love expressed in some of Shakespeare’s richest and most eloquent language.

It’s also one of his most devastating works, as we watch our two “star-crossed lovers” meet their untimely ends.

Director Sara Bruner, who played Juliet in ISF’s 2006 production of this classic, now takes on this theatrical juggernaut, creating focused production that seeks to tell the core story of the tension between love and hate.

“We’ve worked so hard on this production that honors what the story is,” Bruner said. “I haven’t gotten crazy or clever with this thing at all. It doubles down on the humanity and the relationships. But I feel confident that it illuminates things that people have forgotten, or took for granted.”

So, why this play at this time?

Possibly more than any other playwright, Shakespeare holds a mirror up to humanity that never stops showing us the truth, and delivers it in a way that strikes to the heart.

It’s not in all of his plays. For example, there is not an abundance of productions of “Timon of Athens.” But “Romeo & Juliet” never goes out of style. Drop this story into today’s culture and you see issues related to teen suicide and depression, gun control, even a global pandemic.

“We tell these stories until we don’t need them anymore,” Bruner said. “And unfortunately, ‘Romeo & Juliet’ still needs to be told. We need this story because the corrective measures it’s trying to obtain have not happened yet.”

Here are five reasons why ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is so vital

1. “Bonkers, awesome sword fights”: “One of the fun things of the production is to see bonkers, awesome sword fights,” she said. “The weapons we use are weapons — they’re just not sharpened. And we have an awesome new fight director who is creating these exhilarating and thrilling scenes.”

The play is set in the late 1300s, just before the Renaissance fully blossoms. At the time, the weapon open carry had just started to be a thing in Europe. “So, the young men in the streets had rapiers and daggers on them. You can imagine the cultural shift that took place. They had their weapons on them and when mixed with the schism, like the one between the Capulets and the Montagues, fights were settled in the streets and people died.”

2. It’s still relevant: Set in Verona, Italy, “R & J” takes place in a divided world, in a community that is letting down its younger generation. “That feels so resonant to me,” Bruner said. “These kids are inheriting hatred — ‘If I’m a Montague, I hate the Capulets, and vice versa’ — and there is a lot of tension around it that impacts the mental health of our teenage lovers.” We see that today, she said, with huge rifts and divisions in our world, the mental health crisis in young people and the rise in teen suicide.

3. “A plague on both your houses”: Shakespeare wrote some of his greatest works during plagues, including R&J. “One of my favorite little nuggets is that it hinges on the plague,” she said. You remember this plot twist. The friar gives Juliet a potion that will make her appear dead for two days. Romeo is supposed to meet her when she wakes up and they will escape to Mantua to live happily ever after. In the meantime, he sends Romeo a letter via messenger, but the messenger is stopped from leaving the city because he’s been exposed to plague.

“He was quarantined, basically,” Bruner said. “And now we all know what that’s like, and now that we have our pandemic ears, we can’t unhear that.” That is the plot point that sends the play into the depths of tragedy. As he is dying, Mercutio curses the families with his famous quote that is both literal and a metaphor, that plagues them for the rest of the show.

4. It’s a cathartic roller coaster: “Is it the greatest love story ever told? No. It’s a story about two teenagers who meet and fall in love. And because of the pressures from the world around them, things go terribly, terribly wrong. There are so many times when it could have gone right, if someone just said something different. I hope people watch this, kind of like a horror movie,” Bruner said.

“You know what’s about to happen, and you’re like, ‘No, no, don’t meet him at that party! No, friar, don’t give her that piece of advice.’ There is something so compelling about watching people fatefully make all the wrong decisions that ensures and seals their destiny.”

5. We just keep loving this tale. It’s been adapted for the screen, more than any other of Shakespeare’s plays, and several of them have become iconic generational defining favorites: 1968’s version, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, starred Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting; and 1996’s adaptation, set in Verona Beach by director Baz Luhrmann, stared Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio. “R&J” was made into a successful Broadway musical and two Oscar-winning films: “West Side Story” and “Shakespeare in Love.”

Go see it

What: “Romeo and Juliet”

Where: Idaho Shakespeare Festival Amphitheater, 5657 Warm Springs Ave., Boise.

When: July 15-30, 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Check the calendar for performance dates.

Tickets: $36 for the preview, $46 weekdays, $56 weekends for chairs and terraces, $26, $32, $40 for hillside, $25 for students with I.D. Family night (First Sunday night in a run) is is $14 for everyone.

Box office: 336-9221 or IdahoShakespeare.org.

5 things to do this weekend in Boise: New brewery, comedy must-see, Goo Goo Dolls ...