Roméo et Juliette
BY CHARLES GOUNOD
Notes from the Director:
When William Shakespeare sat down to create his Romeo and Juliet, he chose a storyline that his contemporaries may very well have been familiar with. Not the original telling of this story, it was based on other similar versions dating as far back as the 1400s. What is remarkable about the Romeo and Juliet story, and perhaps one of the reasons why Shakespeare chose to retell it in his own words, is how powerfully it resonates amongst many groups of people. It is a story that has been re-imagined and re-invented many times throughout the years, transcending both time and locale, because it’s themes—love versus hate, age versus youth, fate versus determinism, the individual versus the society—are relevant on a human level.
Our production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette is set within the backdrop of Cairo, Illinois at the beginning the 20th-century. A river port town straddled between the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, large parts of its history are characterized by the prominent racial divide that had existed from its founding days in the 1850s and continuing on through the mid-1970s. Just over a hundred years ago on November 11, 1909, Cairo was home to one of the most horrific lynching scenes in the U.S. Described as a ‘circus-style’ lynching’ with approximately 10,000 people in attendance, two men were killed for their crimes—the first and more violent of the two, was of a black man by the name of Will “Froggie” James, accused of murdering a shop girl; the second, a white man named Henry Salzner, who was charged with the murder of his own wife.
Our version of Roméo et Juliette doesn’t attempt to tell the story of Will James, but use this historical backdrop as a jumping-off point to imagine the story of two young adults, who despite their extremely diverse backgrounds and upbringings, come together in love. Ours is part of the story of Southern Illinois. It is the story of a town that was plagued by a hatred so strong that it divided and eventually would fracture this once prosperous riverboat community in the late 1960s. But it is also a story of hope and a reminder that love really can transcend any barrier.
When William Shakespeare sat down to create his Romeo and Juliet, he chose a storyline that his contemporaries may very well have been familiar with. Not the original telling of this story, it was based on other similar versions dating as far back as the 1400s. What is remarkable about the Romeo and Juliet story, and perhaps one of the reasons why Shakespeare chose to retell it in his own words, is how powerfully it resonates amongst many groups of people. It is a story that has been re-imagined and re-invented many times throughout the years, transcending both time and locale, because it’s themes—love versus hate, age versus youth, fate versus determinism, the individual versus the society—are relevant on a human level.
Our production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette is set within the backdrop of Cairo, Illinois at the beginning the 20th-century. A river port town straddled between the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, large parts of its history are characterized by the prominent racial divide that had existed from its founding days in the 1850s and continuing on through the mid-1970s. Just over a hundred years ago on November 11, 1909, Cairo was home to one of the most horrific lynching scenes in the U.S. Described as a ‘circus-style’ lynching’ with approximately 10,000 people in attendance, two men were killed for their crimes—the first and more violent of the two, was of a black man by the name of Will “Froggie” James, accused of murdering a shop girl; the second, a white man named Henry Salzner, who was charged with the murder of his own wife.
Our version of Roméo et Juliette doesn’t attempt to tell the story of Will James, but use this historical backdrop as a jumping-off point to imagine the story of two young adults, who despite their extremely diverse backgrounds and upbringings, come together in love. Ours is part of the story of Southern Illinois. It is the story of a town that was plagued by a hatred so strong that it divided and eventually would fracture this once prosperous riverboat community in the late 1960s. But it is also a story of hope and a reminder that love really can transcend any barrier.
