Methinks that every generation has its own Romeo andJuliet, in which the tragic lovers reflect the concerns of the day. The1936 film directed by George Cukor came out in the midst of the GreatDepression. This was a time when young people going the movies craved glamourand sumptuous production values, things they couldn’t find in their own dailylives. Cukor’s MGM-based production featured major (though overaged) stars.Leslie Howard, as Romeo, was in his forties, and Norma Shearer, who playedJuliet (and was married to studio honcho Irving Thalberg), was about 34, morethan double the age of Shakespeare’s teenage heroine. The film was shotdecorously, on elaborate sets, and given the full prestige treatment, completewith splashy roadshow engagements where illustrated programs were sold. (Yes,my mother bought one, and saved it for many decades)

 

More than 20 years later, in 1957, a much-updated version ofRomeo and Juliet became the toast of Broadway. This of course was WestSide Story. The Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim musical reimagined thestar-crossed lovers as recent New Yorkers from rival cultural backgrounds, withTony as a Polish-American founder of a street gang called the Jets, and Maria,newly arrived from Puerto Rico, as naturally affiliated with the Sharks. Thehit play became in 1964 a mega-hit film that gobsmacked everyone at my highschool. We were much taken, in that era, with the promise of social justice forall, and the tragic story of lovers unable to transcend the enmity all aroundthem hit us hard. (Steven Spielberg’s 2021 rethinking of the same musical hasits merits, but its box-office reception was far less overwhelming, probablybecause the concerns of moviegoers had much changed in the interveningfifty-plus years.)

 

What I consider MY Romeo and Juliet was the FrancoZeffirelli version that came out in the fraught year 1968. It was filmed onlocation in medieval Italian towns, and was the first cinematic version tofeature actors close in age to Shakespeare’s actual characters. Zeffirelliapparently considered casting Paul McCartney and other rock gods of the era,but ended up with two unknowns, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, who werecast when they were 16 and 15, respectively, but aged a year in the course offilming. We college students of the era, many caught up with our own first bigromances, watched this movie in a sort of swoony daze, fully understanding theerotic passions of the two young lovers.

 

Leave it to Baz Luhrmann to jazz up the Shakespearean story,giving it a kind of hipster sensibility. The year was 1996, and the stars wereLeonardo DiCaprio (then 21) and Claire Danes (about 17). The feuding familieswere played as 20th century Miami mobster types, with the Capuletsnow having some Latin roots. The setting was Verona Beach, and one key scenewas played in a swimming pool. There’s still some well-spoken Shakespearean poetry,but also guns and party drugs.

 

I’m reminiscing about all this because I’ve just seen theL.A. stage production of & Juliet, a London and Broadway hit musicalthat posits Juliet (waking in the tomb beside the dead Romeo) deciding notto kill herself for love. What follows is a riotous comedy in which pop songs fromMax Martin are incorporated into Juliet’s romantic adventures in Paris.(Brittany Spears’ “Oops!... I Did It Again” becomes an acknowledgement thatJuliet falls for cute guys a tad too quickly.) The many teens in the house cheeredfor Juliet’s developing feminist consciousness and for the “woke” gayempowerment motif that predominates. Me? I just felt rather old.