The Jamie Lloyd Company has hit back after its production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” has been the subject of what they call a “barrage of deplorable racial abuse” aimed at an unnamed cast member.
The play, directed by Jamie Lloyd (“Sunset Boulevard”), stars “Spider-Man: No Way Home” star Tom Holland as Romeo and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers (“Sex Education”) as Juliet.
On Friday, the Jamie Lloyd Company issued a statement, saying: “Following the announcement of our ‘Romeo & Juliet’ cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company. This must stop.”
Romeo and Juliet is the stupidest target for this when all of Shakespeare has been interpreted in wildly diverging ways, skin color would be the smallest of which (and where was it stated that Juliet was white?)
It’s been a lot of years since high school English, but Juliet Capulet was of the Italian family Capulet in the 1590s.
There is some detail in the references of the Capulet family to real world factions of the time. But both those arguing for and against this casting don’t care about any of that.
yeah… people actually don’t care about the canon when they can use social issues and division as marketing
The story says she’s from a noble family in North Italy. Most likely she has olive skin tone.
You know that she was portrayed by a non-Italian for the first few hundred years, right?
Of course. Italy didn’t exist yet when the play was written.
The place has been called Italia since at least 49BC
Wait, do you think that there were no Italians before the state of Italy was established?
They were not “Italians” though, they were part of the Venetian republic, which now is part of Italy.
This is like saying Pocahontas was from the US just because she was born where is now the state of Virginia.
More like saying Pocahontas was a Native American. Which in most settings would be an appropriate description.
How did you get down votes for that?
You can get down votes for anything. Because they’re free.