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Hartford Stage’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’ Features Mixed Cast Under Tresnjak

  • Chris Ghaffari plays Romeo and Kaliswa Brewster plays Juliet in...

    Patrick Raycraft / The Hartford Courant

    Chris Ghaffari plays Romeo and Kaliswa Brewster plays Juliet in Shakespeare's most popular play, Romeo & Juliet.  The two embrace during a rehearsal for the production at Hartford Stage.

  • Chris Ghaffari and Kaliswa Brewster share a kiss as they...

    Patrick Raycraft / The Hartford Courant

    Chris Ghaffari and Kaliswa Brewster share a kiss as they rehearse for The Hartford Stage's production of "Romeo and Juliet."

  • Chris Ghaffari plays Romeo and Kaliswa Brewster plays Juliet in...

    Patrick Raycraft / The Hartford Courant

    Chris Ghaffari plays Romeo and Kaliswa Brewster plays Juliet in The Harford Stage's production of "Romeo And Juliet."

  • Chris Ghaffari (Romeo), and Kaliswa Brewster (Juliet) rehearse for the...

    Patrick Raycraft / The Hartford Courant

    Chris Ghaffari (Romeo), and Kaliswa Brewster (Juliet) rehearse for the Hartford Stage's production of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

  • Chris Ghaffari and Kaliswa Brewster play the parts of Romeo...

    Patrick Raycraft / The Hartford Courant

    Chris Ghaffari and Kaliswa Brewster play the parts of Romeo and Juliet, respectively.  The two rehearse the play's famed balcony scene.

  • Chris Ghaffari (Romeo) And Kaliswa Brewster (Juliet) rehearse the play's...

    Patrick Raycraft / The Hartford Courant

    Chris Ghaffari (Romeo) And Kaliswa Brewster (Juliet) rehearse the play's most famous moment, the balcony scene, and its famous line: "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

  • Chris Ghaffari and Kaliswa Brewster rehearse their roles as Romeo...

    Patrick Raycraft / The Hartford Courant

    Chris Ghaffari and Kaliswa Brewster rehearse their roles as Romeo and Juliet during the play's famed balcony scene.

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The first question is the obvious one. Since Darko Tresnjak’s new production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” features African-American actors in four key roles — including Juliet and her father Capulet — does the show’s directorial concept have anything to do with race relations?

“Not at all,” Tresnjak responded without hesitation, in a phone interview following a rehearsal of the show earlier this month. “People will assume there’s a design here, but there isn’t. I just cast some of my favorite actors.” Kaliswa Brewster, for instance, who plays Juliet, was in the ensemble that performed “Macbeth” and “La Dispute” at Hartford Stage in repertory two seasons ago, and has worked with Tresnjak at several other theaters.

“I feel like I have a company that I bring together,” says the director. “It’s just that some of them are in England, some are on the West Coast and some are in Hartford.”

Some of the other actors in the show who’ve worked with Tresnjak previously include Charles Janasz (Friar Laurence) Celeste Ciulla (Lady Capulet), Bill Christ (Prince Escalus) and Stephen Mir (Bathasar). The Romeo, as it happens, is one of the new folks. He’s Chris Ghaffari, who’s currently studying in the acting program at the Yale School of Drama.

“He has an extraordinary feeling for the text,” Tresnjak says of Ghaffari, who’s had to fit the Hartford rehearsals around his Yale classwork.

Chris Ghaffari plays Romeo and Kaliswa Brewster plays Juliet in Shakespeare's most popular play, Romeo & Juliet.  The two embrace during a rehearsal for the production at Hartford Stage.
Chris Ghaffari plays Romeo and Kaliswa Brewster plays Juliet in Shakespeare’s most popular play, Romeo & Juliet. The two embrace during a rehearsal for the production at Hartford Stage.

This will mark the 25th time that Tresnjak has directed a Shakespeare play. The list features such rarities as “Pericles” and “The Two Noble Kinsmen.” He’s also done operas based on Shakespeare plays, and in 2001 staged Tom Stoppard’s bard-baiting comedy “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” at the Long Wharf Theatre. But this is the first time Tresnjak’s tackled “Romeo and Juliet,” one of the most popular plays in the canon.

“It’s one of the three plays I feel young directors pick,” he muses, and obviously didn’t feel that urge himself. But he’s always sensed the difficulties inherent in it.

“It’s a gnarly play,” Tresnjak says, “with a lot of rhyming couplets. The rhythms can get in the way of what’s being said. You have to think ahead to the end of the thought.”

Besides directing and casting the show, Tresnjak also designed its set. He likens his overall vision of the production to Italian neorealist cinema of the 1960s. He knew, for budgetary reasons as much as creative ones, that “I just couldn’t do an Elizabethan production” for “one of Shakespeare’s biggest plays. I started to think about the movies of DeSica and Rosselini.”

The director was also inspired by a visit he made to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, which is studded with statues in various poses of grieving and reflection.

The costumes are by Ilona Somogyi, who graduated from the Yale School of Drama and now is on the faculty there. She has many more new plays than classics on her resume, including the New York productions of “Clybourne Park,” “Jerry Springer: The Opera” and “Hot ‘n’ Throbbing.” Previously at Hartford Stage, Somogyi designed costumes for “Tom Sawyer,” “Noises Off” and, in 2008, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

This is Tresnjak’s first time working with Somogyi, though he knew her through his husband Joshua Pearson, who’s also a costume designer. Tresnjak says he used Somogyi as a sounding board when trying to determine some problematic areas of the scripts, such as the nature of “The Watchmen,” who appear in the fifth act, and how much of a “military state” is being depicted in this strange city of Verona with its famously “divided” houses of Montague and Capulet.

“Shakespeare’s characters are seemingly never at a loss for words,” Tresnjak notes. “So it’s interesting what is not said. You know that there’s this ancient feud, but it’s not explained what it is.” He began to think of the play in terms of parents and their children.

“‘Romeo & Juliet’ makes a lot of sense if the older generation is driven to the brink of despair,” he said.

Unlike some directors, Tresnjak doesn’t edit the script to push a particular concept or agenda.

“I’m not cutting that much,” he said. “‘Midsummer’ is the least cuttable; it doesn’t need it, because it’s perfection. With ‘Romeo & Juliet,’ there are some confusing parts. We’re still figuring that out.”

What he’s sure of is the interest that Hartford Stage subscribers have in Shakespeare.

“The audience has really grown here,” he said, explaining that, with the exception of the recent star-powered success “Rear Window,” the most popular show at Hartford Stage in recent years has been “Hamlet.” Shakespeare shows also mean special matinee performances so that local school groups can be introduced to the bard. “Romeo & Juliet” is the fifth Shakespeare production Tresnjak has directed at the theater in as many seasons, following “The Tempest,” “Twelfth Night,” “Macbeth” and “Hamlet.” Such regular programming “brightens my day,” Tresnjak said.

“Always having a Shakespeare play in the future is a great way to live,” he said. “It means a lot emotionally.”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S “ROMEO & JULIET” is at Hartford Stage, 50 Church St., Hartford, Feb. 11 through March 20. Performances are Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., with added Wednesday matinees on Feb. 24. There are no regular performances March 8-9. Tickets are $25-$85. Information: 860-527-5151, hartfordstage.org

Editor’s note: This story has been updated from an earlier version to correct dates when there will be no regular performances.