If They Lived Happily Ever After They Would Have Gotten a Divorce

Nature Theatre of Oklahoma
Romeo and Juliet
Posted by Ariel Frager
My father-in-law is a college professor. One day after class he overheard a couple of his students talking. One said to the other, “You know I like Shakespeare but he is so full of clichés.” What we don’t know about Shakespeare is immense. The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma brings this to life by asking people to recount what they remember about Romeo and Juliet. Two actors then retold their exact and often incorrect musing about the play. It was a performance about memory, and about trying to sounds smart. We laughed at the funny accentuated accents, we laughed at the hilarious overacting, but really we laughed because most of us in the audience could do no better a job of recounting the finer points of Romeo and Juliet than the poor schmucks the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma called.
By far the most interesting part was the very funny commentary the callers made about the play. “Had they not killed themselves and had lived happily ever after, I feel that they would have gotten a divorce,” said one insightful caller. Another said, “To me, it was kind of like 9/11.” And another, “They were bad parents. If they had let them fuck each other silly it would have all been OK.” This very simple concept was taken to the very silliest degree. It never stopped being funny when they got the plot points wrong. And there was also an erotically dancing chicken. What more could you ask from a night at the theatre.