The Cardinal Stage Company opens their 2011 season with their first production of a Shakespeare play. Artistic director Randy White promises a luscious, romantic, bawdy, bloody, tragic production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The play is set in Renaissance Verona, but White and his troupe have a modern take on the proceedings.
Two Chicagoans have come south for the production: Mouzam Makkar will play Juliet and Andrew Carter plays her Romeo. We kidded Makkar a bit about the headstrong and independent Juliet and asked if perhaps modern day parents might want to keep their teen aged daughters away from the show.
"No, not really. I think that the play is really about love and its power in quite a pure way. A power that we can all wish there was more of in our world. And really, I don't think that there's much chance that any of the girls coming to the production are in danger of being wed to someone they've never met before."
While Mouzam Makkar was quite willing to say that Juliet is the driving force of the play's romance, Andrew Carter didn't quite see it that way. "Really, I think that both are responsible. I do have to say that as I've been working with the part, I'm convinced that it is important that my Romeo be a bit more dynamic and decisive than some I've seen."