{"id":29654,"date":"2026-05-20T13:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T13:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/?p=29654"},"modified":"2026-05-20T13:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T13:08:13","slug":"a-striking-new-romeo-and-juliet-set-along-the-u-s-mexico-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/?p=29654","title":{"rendered":"A Striking New Romeo and Juliet, Set Along the U.S.-Mexico Border"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>This Lady Capulet is the matriarch of a conservative family, living in a place \u201cwhere the act of speaking Spanish can be violent and punishable,\u201d Ali says. In this production, the Hispanic Romeo can only speak his native tongue at home and is reprimanded by his cousin Benvolio for daring to do so anywhere else. Juliet learns Spanish from a household servant, Pedro (a minor character, Peter, in the original), and the language becomes the lovers\u2019 secret code. The two find solace through their connection.<\/p>\n<p>Ali has developed something of a track record of using multiple languages in his productions. His bilingual <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.wnycstudios.org\/podcasts\/romeo-y-julieta\" class=\"external-link text link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.wnycstudios.org\/podcasts\/romeo-y-julieta&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wnycstudios.org\/podcasts\/romeo-y-julieta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">audio play <em>Romeo y Julieta<\/em><\/a><em>,<\/em> which was released as a podcast during the pandemic, starred Nyong\u2019o and Juan Castano. Now, Ali concedes, the approach \u201cdidn\u2019t say anything conceptual about the story.\u201d But the director fine-tuned the idea for his refugee-crisis-inflected production of <em>Twelfth Night<\/em> last year, in which the private use of Swahili connected select characters as they made their way in a foreign land.<\/p>\n<p>Ali understands Shakespeare\u2019s brilliance lies in the malleability of his works. \u201cWhy do we keep coming back to these characters whose fates we know?\u201d Ali asks. He remembers seeing Baz Luhrmann\u2019s 1996 adaptation of <em>Romeo and Juliet<\/em> in a Nairobi cinema, with the baby-faced Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes gazing at each other through a fish tank. \u201cYou don\u2019t need text when you have such a strong visual,\u201d he says. Ali calls <em>West Side Story,<\/em> the 1957 musical set among dueling New York gangs, the piece\u2019s \u201cmost glorious adaptation and translation,\u201d recognizable without replicating each specific element. He shares a passion with Aikens for the haunting score of Franco Zeffirelli\u2019s faithful 1968 movie.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven at her young age, she\u2019s unsatisfied,\u201d Aikens says. The actor\u2019s eyes roll up in gentle empathy. \u201cPart of her is grieving that she hasn\u2019t yet been able to live or decide what she wants, and then she meets Romeo and, finally, it\u2019s like she can survive through this love.\u201d The two are coming up in an imperiled world, and Aikens, while proud of her accomplishment, sees her casting as almost \u201ca new kind of stunt\u2014we\u2019re so used to seeing celebrities and people with established careers in these roles.\u201d She says she\u2019ll have to work a little to believe that she didn\u2019t trick someone into giving her the part.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight, right,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez says, gently curtailing this line of thought. \u201cI think what\u2019s great, at least what helps me, is thinking I\u2019m not alone. We\u2019re in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>In this story: hair, Edward Lampley; makeup, Mark Carrasquillo; tailor, Tae Yoshida for Carol Ai Studio Tailors.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Produced by Boom Productions Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vogue.com\/article\/romeo-and-juliet-new-york-public-theater\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Lady Capulet is the matriarch of a conservative family, living in a place \u201cwhere the act of speaking Spanish can be violent and punishable,\u201d Ali says. In this production, the Hispanic Romeo can only speak his native tongue at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunthow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}