Q&A with director Raymond O. Caldwell on Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare and AI, and his “love letter to DC”

It’s an election year, and in Washington, DC, politics is interwoven into the very fabric of the city as the nation’s capital. Under the direction of Raymond O. Caldwell, Shakespeare’s timeless story of star-crossed lovers becomes an incendiary cautionary tale, an allegory about divisive politics, tribalism, mass media, and the detrimental effects on today’s youth. Folger Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet is on stage October 1 to November 10.

Read the Q&A below to learn more about Caldwell’s vision for Romeo and Juliet and creating a DC metaverse.

 What was your first experience with Shakespeare?

I think my first Shakespeare was probably either A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Hamlet. I don’t remember which one, but I remember being in high school and going to see a Shakespeare play at the Staatstheater Stuttgart [in Stuttgart, Germany]. I was born and raised in Germany and moved to the US when I was about 15 years old. Some of my earliest theater experiences actually happened in Germany. I didn’t even know that Shakespeare could write in English, I thought he was German. I shared that story with the cast of Romeo and Juliet on the first day of rehearsals.

What’s your favorite Shakespeare play?

I am outside of the theater …  so I can say it. My favorite is Macbeth. The magic in it, how dark it is, the core of humanity and power in the play. It’s definitely my favorite Shakespearean tragedy and A Midsummer Night’s Dream is probably my favorite comedy. I’d love to direct Macbeth.

Your directorial work is known for being very youth-centric and socially conscious. How are you bringing that ethos to this production of Romeo and Juliet?

My hope is that this production is for young people. When I was conceptualizing the show I asked, “What’s dividing us in this current moment?” And it’s so clear that in America right now, politics are the divisive cancer in society, so I wanted to do a production that centers on politics. We have these two opposing families—the Capulets and Montagues—coming from opposing political parties. When we become tribalistic in this way, what are natural outgrowths of this type of tribalism? It leads to an escalation of verbal and physical violence and an uptick in substance abuse.

 Romeo and Juliet is just as political and socially conscious, because we watch as two young people abuse substances to cope with the pressure of life. Addictive substances may be chemical or pharmaceutical, and can also extend to the digital: social media and the 24 hour news cycle are both addictive. We get to explore the digital lives of both Romeo and Juliet in this production. They are always on their phones when they enter a new scene. Romeo procures poison on the dark web and Friar Lawrence—like so many churches during the pandemic—engages with his followers in a digital space.

 Romeo and Juliet is very thought provoking and geared towards young people, because the only people that we see die onstage are the young people. That’s a real tragedy as well. We’ve reimagined the final moment, because in Shakespeare’s play, there is reconciliation and everyone learns a lesson. But I don’t think that Americans in contemporary society are learning these lessons. Our children continue to die in school shootings over and over and over again. Even at the feet of their bodies, we continue to wage political war against one another.

The creation of this media landscape in Romeo and Juliet also includes artificial intelligence elements, too. How does that work?

We watched both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions and pulled lines that directly relate to each of the political parties’ platforms to create the Capulets’ and Montagues’ speeches. We entered select lines into ChatGPT and asked for those to be converted into blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter. Using those AI-generated speeches, we recorded each of the actors giving a stump speech in front of a green screen that will be replaced by the backdrop of the parties’ convention stages, cutting back to scenes from the convention floor to see the audience response and their applause. We also used AI to construct Rosaline, Romeo’s ex-girlfriend, so we will see her in the background with her cousin, Juliet, in social media scenes that will be projected.

At first rehearsal, you described this production as your “love letter to DC.” What do you mean by that?

I chose Washington, DC, as a setting because it’s a deeply political city, and sometimes we don’t really think about the way politics play out on the bodies of young people. I think about those young people’s experiences of the world. What we don’t see is the pressure of society on these young people and the pressure that society puts on love.

In the casting of Romeo and Juliet, I was very conscious of casting two actors who are third culture kids for the title roles. Third culture kids are really the future of America, and we see many third culture kids here in Washington, DC. In Romeo’s case, his mother is Black, his father is Asian American, and so he represents a third culture, a mingling of both of these two cultures in America. The same is true of Juliet. Her mother is Puerto Rican, and her father is white. I’m really interested in hearing Shakespeare in other languages, so I’m really excited that Lady Capulet and the Nurse speak Spanish. We’re going to hear Spanish in this production, because it expands who Shakespeare is for.

We’re building a DC metaverse, and I want folks who live in DC to immediately recognize the architectural references that we’ve designed into the set. When you walk into the theater, you’ll see the Brutalist architecture that defines the DC Metro. In this metaverse, those familiar references have been turned on their heads. There are these little Easter eggs throughout the show for Washingtonians.

And then lastly, I think about the Latine presence in this production, speaking directly to the huge Latine population here in Washington, DC. The two actresses that are playing both Juliet’s Nurse, played by Luz Nicholas, and Lady Capulet, played by Fran Tapia, are celebrated actresses at GALA Hispanic Theatre. I’m so excited for GALA’s audience to come see and hear Spanish on the Folger stage and for DC’s Latine population to know that Folger is a house for them as well.