ROMEO AND JULIET
by Shakespeare

I chose Romeo and Juliet for its enduring relevance as a lens through which to examine societal division, failed authority, and the cost of passion without support. Verona, like our own world, is fractured—driven by vanity, violence, and entrenched power structures that suppress love and humanity.

My production framed the play as a tragedy of a broken society unable to provide space for healthy passion. Romeo and Juliet’s love becomes an act of defiance against a world that insists on “no” at every turn. Set loosely in early 19th-century Italy, the design invited contemporary reflection without forcing modern parallels. This era’s backdrop of revolution and Romanticism mirrored the play’s themes of personal feeling vs. rigid order.

Visually, the production emphasized tension and contradiction—hard vs. soft, flesh vs. metal, freedom vs. confinement—within a flexible, prison-like set that evoked both danger and beauty.