“I was at a dinner party recently, and one of the guests exclaimed, ‘I’d rather be single and die alone than marry a Republican!’”
That’s what director Raymond O. Caldwell wrote in the official program for what some reviewers call Folger Shakespeare Library’s “partisan” take on the Bard’s classic tragedy “Romeo and Juliet.”
In Caldwell’s version of the play, as noted in reviews by The Washington Post and MD Theatre Guide, Democrats and Republicans face off in modern-day Washington.
In fact, in this adaptation in the nation’s capital, Juliet’s mother is Hispanic (Puerto Rican) and her father is white; her family wears red-hued costumes (apparently representing the Trumps or Republicans). Romeo and his family are black, for the most part, and they wear shades of blue (apparently representing Kamala Harris or Democrats).
The…
