20% Theatre looks at life after love in After Juliet

Similar to the way Tom Stoppard's play Rosencranz And Guildenstern Are Dead imagines what happened to a couple of minor characters in Hamlet just offsides of that tragedy, After Juliet looks at what happens to two characters in Romeo And Juliet that Shakespeare barely paid attention to: Rosaline, the girl Romeo is pining for before he sees Juliet, and who becomes a heartbroken lover out for vengeance; and Romeo’s best friend, Benvolio, as the mourning peacemaker who happens to love Rosaline. Playwright Sharman Macdonald wrote this continuation of Shakespeare in 1999, with daughter Keira Knightley starring in early performances. The A.V. Club caught up with actors Anika Taylor and Bryan Grosso, who play the sword-cross’d lovers, as well as 20% Artistic Director Claire Avitabile and After Juliet co-director Leah Adcock-Starr in advance of the Aug. 21 opening to talk about language, adapting classics to modern times, and why stories about people matter. 

A.V. Club: Rosaline is hardly a character in Romeo And Juliet—there are references to her, but she doesn’t have a line and isn't explicitly onstage in the text of the play, though directors will sometimes include her. What’s it like to play a character who is known but whom we know nothing about?

Anika Taylor: It’s a lot of fun to create in the flesh someone who was talked about before. I have seen plenty of productions where they have had someone who is supposed to be Rosaline prance across the stage at a party, but I like the idea that even then she had so much more behind her, that there was a whole world in that story that we’ve never heard of. It never occurred to me how she felt about Romeo falling in love with Juliet. Because he had been obsessed with her, all that attention and energy had been directed at her—[so] what it would feel like, whether or not you loved them back, to have them on a dime fall in love with your cousin? [Laughs.]

AVC: Unlike Rosaline, Benvolio does have a fairly well-defined character in the original Shakespeare. How is he different in After Juliet?

Bryan Grosso: It’s weird. His best friend, his brother, his family are gone and he is the only one. Now he’s in love with Rosaline—was he in love with Rosaline the whole time? Did Romeo ever know that? How does he go from being the third to the first and only? It’s interesting to look back, because I’ve played Benvolio before in R And J. It helps in my head to know where [Benvolio's character arc] is coming from. But with all the newness of this script it really twists and turns it, and makes it something different.

AVC: The language is a mix of modern and classical. How do you navigate that?

BG: There’s one scene where in the middle of all this lovely modern dialogue there are exact quotes from Romeo And Juliet just, bam!, right in the middle. They’ve been a bitch! [Laughs.]

AT: It’s a challenge to make it so that there’s not even a seam—you’re having these casual conversations where you’re throwing one-liners at each other, and then one of them just happens to be really poetic.

AVC: How did you choose After Juliet?

Claire Avitabile: [Macdonald] is one of my favorite playwrights, and I have always loved this play, so it’s kind of one of the first selfish choices I’ve made for the company. And at this point today, when our world is a mess, I just thought it would be an interesting choice to pick up from a play that was a mess and show somebody’s interpretation of what could happen next.

Leah Adcock-Starr: We’ve talked some in rehearsal how this is three days after a major tragedy. Not to be flippant, but for these families, this is their 9/11 or their bridge collapse. [After Juliet is about] what happens when all your systems fall apart. Everything is up in the air, and everyone is trying to find their new balance. I think that’s very real now. I think that resonates now.

AVC: After Juliet was originally written for youth. Is this production aimed at younger people?

CA: It’s not “youth” youth, but more directed at teens. There’s stage combat and a fair amount of profanity—so no, I would say adults, and teens with parents who don’t mind the occasional “fuck.”

LAS: And a kick-ass sword fight.