Back in 1985, the Provo High drama department unintentionally turned Romeo and Juliet, a 400-year-old tragedy, into a slapstick comedy. In the midst of that pathetic evening—as I stood in the wings with a broken finger, listening to the audience’s laughter—I could have asked, “Who’s to blame for this disaster?”
Well, mostly me (and we’ll get to that), but first let’s consider who was culpable for making Shakespeare such a permanent fixture in this state that random students like me had no choice but to act in one of his complicated plays.
The first culprits were those dang pioneers who reportedly loved the Bard so much that they lugged his collected works across the plains. Early journals indicate that as soon as a few log cabins were built in any Utah settlement, the next move was to establish a local “dramatic association” to tackle Hamlet or Othello.
Additional incriminating evidence: After the Social Hall (Utah’s first theater) was erected in 1853, a gilded bust of Shakespeare’s head was placed over the stage, crowning him the patron saint, I guess, of all things theatrical in the territory. In later decades, he continued to loom large, as generations of young Utahns were required to memorize his poetry, and snippets of his wisdom started showing up regularly (and often inaccurately) in sermons delivered in local chapels and at the general conference.
And then there’s that dang festival in Cedar City, the largest regional Shakespearean shindig in the country. Back in 1962, when the idea was first floated, skeptics on the city council predicted that it would go over like a “pregnant pole vaulter.” Boy, were they proved wrong by the thousands of enthusiastic attendees. Sixty years later it’s still going strong.
Now to my story. As the new kid in school who simply wanted to make some friends by trying out for the school play, I was not prepared for the Shakespearean quagmire I was about to enter. As an inexperienced actor, I was surprised to be cast as Romeo. “Cool for you,” you might think—but no, this development resulted in relentless teasing from my peers—especially about my costume: white tights and a puffy black pirate shirt.
After weeks of this abuse, I had an epiphany: What if I turned the fight scene between me and Tybalt into the most impressive Shakespearean sword battle ever? Who could mock me after witnessing that? And so, with the director’s blessing (but lack of supervision), Tybalt and I spent weeks transforming what should have been a simple, two-minute clash into a fifteen-minute-long, ninja extravaganza. It featured karate kicks, lightsaber-style clashes and tricky slides between each other’s legs. There was one problem, however: the choreography had become so complicated that our execution would have to be perfect. The smallest mistake would mean disaster.
Opening night arrived, and when I walked on stage in my stupid tights, sure enough, I was bombarded with wolf whistles and catcalls. As my face turned red, I thought, “Ye just wait; we’ll nigh see who doth mocketh whom.”
The battle scene finally arrived. As we executed our first karate-style stunts, the audience actually got quiet, like they were genuinely impressed (or slightly confused). Then, just two minutes in, tragedy struck: the hilts of our swords became entangled. At first, we tried to pretend like it was part of the fight: “Hey, give me back my sword!” After five minutes of that silliness, we finally had to stop and cooperate with each other.
With the action halted, the energy left the auditorium—and then, gradually, the heckling started up again. We were losing them. When we finally separated our swords, things got worse. Confused and lost, we simply flailed about, giving each other random welts. The audience laughed appreciatively at each awkward lunge, as if watching the Three Stooges.
Realizing that one of us was about to lose an eye, we finally just dropped our swords. At this point I was supposed to grab him by the front of his puffy shirt, roll him onto the ground, and fake stab him in the chest. In my frustration I got a surge of adrenalin, however, and somehow lifted him over my head and started running across the stage. We eventually became airborne, with me inexplicably above him. When poor Tybalt’s head hit the boards, he was knocked unconscious.
Minutes later, standing in the wings, with the laughter of the audience ringing in my ears, I noticed something was wrong with my middle finger: I had broken it during the chaos and it was now hanging down at a wrong angle. I showed this to our beleaguered director and he just taped it in place with band-aid and told me to finish the show.
You can imagine how I looked, later, in the emergency room, decked out in full costume and makeup, gingerly holding up my wounded digit. After the doctor stopped giggling, he gave me some drugs and splinted two fingers together.
The next morning, I held up my damaged hand and complained to my mom, “What am I going to do for the remaining performances?” Ever supportive, she got out her make up kit and camouflaged the bandage with flesh-tinted cover up, effectively creating an oversized megafinger.
That second night’s performance initially went better—perhaps because the audience was fascinated by what was going on with my weird hand. Things went off course again, though, with the pivotal fight scene. When I went to grasp my sword, I discovered that the splinted fingers on my right hand couldn’t bend to grasp the hilt! I was thus forced to reach around awkwardly and pull out the sword with my other arm.
Have you seen someone throw a football for the first time with their left hand? That’s what my sword fighting looked like. My brother told me I appeared to be gently tickling Tybalt with my weapon while flipping off the crowd (accidentally) with my giant middle finger. In other words, the exact opposite of the impressive, ego-salvaging battle I’d planned--but maybe an appropriately rude gesture towards all the Shakespeare-loving Utahns over the years who were responsible for putting me in that mess?
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