Racists Absolutely Certain Romeo And Juliet Were Very Real, Very White People

Hate makes you stupid.

The upcoming West End production of Romeo & Juliet has predictably triggered racists with its perfectly normal casting. The actors playing the titular characters aren’t AI or anything. Romeo is the MCU’s Spider-Man Tom Holland and Juliet is Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers (Bad Education). Amewaduh-Rivers has a bachelor’s degree in music from Oxford University and she’s worked with Shakespeare’s Globe, the Actors Touring Company, and the National Theater. She can probably manage the balcony scene.

Over on Elon Musk’s blog, someone shared a photo of Holland and Amewaduh-Rivers next to an image of Claire Danes and Leonard DiCaprio from 1996’s Romeo + Juliet. The whiny caption read: “Romeo & Juliet movie then vs. now. They are rewriting history in front of our very eyes.”

Another moron replied, “Italian historians will take good care of the realities regarding Romeo and Juliet. DEI movies are meant to distort reality ..”

Amewaduh-Rivers wasn’t cast as part of some DEI program — though theatre actively appealing to diverse audiences is a business decision not a “woke” mandate. Of course, we all know that “DEI” has become the latest ethnic slur from those who resent our diverse reality.

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Confronting racists with logic is almost always a waste of time, but my wife is out of town and I’m lonely so here goes: There are in fact Black Italians — roughly 1.15 million as of 2023. Although most African immigrants arrived over the past 20 years, and Romeo and Juliet was written in 1597, centuries before “Italy” existed. This is probably less relevant than the fact that Romeo and Juliet aren’t real people. Yet racists online are behaving as if Juliet were an actual historical figure like Ariel the mermaid.

How ‘Italian’ is Romeo and Juliet anyway?

William Shakespeare set 13 of his plays (about a third) in what would become Italy, which provided an exotic, romantic locale (Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing) while also allowing him to criticize political systems and their leaders from a discreet distance (Julius Caesar, Othello). His goal was more dramatic than historical. Caesar’s original text, for instance, suggests that the actors weren’t costumed in Roman togas and laurel crowns but instead wore typical Elizabethan dress. (It was probably also cheaper, and this was the theatre, after all.)

Italy was never really the point of Romeo and Juliet, a story so universal in its themes that it benefits from different interpretations. (I memorized Romeo’s dying monologue after watching Tim Curry perform the famous lines as my childhood hero Captain Hook.)

The play’s very flexible. Sometimes it’s set in 1980s Los Angeles, and sometimes it’s West Side Story, whose Juliet expy Maria is Puerto Rican. Romeo and Juliet is the tragic tale of star-crossed lovers from warring families, so if the leads have different ethnic backgrounds, it arguably further reinforces the play’s themes. But I’m no “Italian historian.”

The first actor to play Juliet was neither Italian nor a woman. The 15-year-old English actor Robert Goffe is believed to have originated the role opposite 28-year-old Richard Burbage as Romeo. I say “believed” because it’s not as if Playbills still exist from that period. Nowadays, a teenage boy in a dress making love to an adult man on stage will get you shut down in Florida.

Since then, a wide range of actors have played Romeo and Juliet. The 1936 film starred 34-year-old Norma Shearer and 43-year-old Leslie Howard, who were both old enough to know better. No, they weren’t Italian, either. Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 Romeo & Juliet is very English Accent Theatre, and his Juliet (Olivia Hussey) is of Argentinian and English heritage.

Gen-Xers might fondly recall Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the famous couple in director Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. DiCaprio is part Italian, but Danes’ background is mostly German/British. There’s probably a reason she hasn’t worked as much with Martin Scorsese. True, Romeo + Juliet isn’t a realistic adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Luhrmann’s work is generally unhinged and cartoonish — sometimes in a good way, like most of Moulin Rouge and all the John Leguizamo scenes in Romeo + Juliet. However, even the more straightforward, traditional productions of the play take their share of liberties. Maybe there are versions where Juliet is overtly Italian, but they are probably the minority.

Why are racists so mad all the time?

I’m sure Amewaduh-Rivers is a trailblazer in many ways, but not when it comes to breaking the color barrier as Juliet. Regina Taylor was the first Black actor to play the role in 1986 at the Belasco Theatre. Ronald Reagan was president, but white folks still put up less of a fuss.

“Romeo and Juliet was my Broadway debut. At that point, when I landed in New York, it was the beginning of the discussion of diversity, of colorblind casting as it were. So I reaped the benefits of that. I think, as with any change, some people are resistant to it but for the most part, it was people welcoming it with opened arms,” Taylor said in 2013. “I was already doing the regional theatre circuit doing Shakespeare so I felt like I was prepared to do it and I had a wonderful experience. I feel like in general with the general public, people coming in may have certain expectations and you challenge those expectations. And some people meet you and some people don’t. For the most part, people met us.”

Four-time Tony Award nominee Condola Rashad (Phylicia Rashad’s daughter and Debbie Allen’s niece) played Juliet in the 2013 Broadway revival. The casting wasn’t color-evasive, as the Montagues were white and the Capulets were Black.

“I felt pressure from the outside but I realized that I couldn’t acknowledge it,” she said at the time. “All of that pressure doesn’t really mean anything just because this role is iconic and just because it's such a famous role. Juliet herself does not know she’s an icon … You can’t look at it too hard. You have to do what you do and tell the story of a young girl who doesn't know she’s an icon; she’s just a little teenager who's in love. She doesn’t know that the world knows her. That’s not her reality so I couldn’t approach her that way.”

When the upcoming Romeo and Juliet’s cast was announced, Amewudah-Rivers said, “I’m so grateful to be making my West End debut as Juliet with The Jamie Lloyd Company. It’s a dream to be joining this team of incredible artists with Jamie at the helm. I’m excited to bring a fresh energy to this story alongside Tom, and to welcome new audiences to the theatre.”

Horrible people seem intent on turning Amewudah-Rivers’ dream into a nightmare. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to suffer in silence. The Jamie Lloyd Company swiftly condemned what it described as a “barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company.”

“This must stop,” the company declared in a statement. “We are working with a remarkable group of artists. We insist that they are free to create work without facing online harassment. We will continue to support and protect everyone in our company at all costs. Any abuse will not be tolerated and will be reported. Bullying and harassment have no place online, in our industry or in our wider communities.”

Shakespeare called the Capulets and Montagues “two households, both alike in dignity.” The failure to recognize this mutual dignity resulted in tragedy. It’s been 400 years, but people still refuse to heed this lesson.

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