Simon Godwin on "Romeo and Juliet"

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The National Theatre’s new production of "Romeo and Juliet" was meant to premiere in the summer of 2020. But when the COVID-19 pandemic began, Simon Godwin, the production’s director, was tasked with turning it into a 90-minute film shot entirely in the National’s Littleton Theatre. Now, as the film approaches its United States premiere, Godwin sees "Romeo and Juliet" as a play uniquely suited to our pandemic moment. We spoke with him about how the pandemic affected the production logistically and thematically, as well as about learning how to direct a film and working with actors like Josh O’Connor, Jessie Buckley, and Tamsin Grieg. Godwin is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. "Romeo and Juliet" airs in the United States at 9 pm EDT on April 23—Shakespeare’s birthday—on PBS Great Performances. Simon Godwin is the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published Tuesday, April 13. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Never Was a Story of More Woe,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's a timeless story, and it's a story for all times.
0:04.0	My heart love till now,
0:07.0	forswear its sight,
0:09.0	for I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
0:12.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:27.6	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:30.6	Romeo and Juliet is popular.
0:33.6	When high schools or theaters want to introduce kids or new audiences to Shakespeare, often they do it with Romeo and Juliet.
0:41.9	So today, when theaters are shut down and all of us are still looking forward to hugging and kissing and holding hands safely again,
0:50.0	it may not be surprising that there's a welter of new Romeo and Juliet productions out there.
0:56.2	There's a new Spanish-English podcast version. There's Romeo hashtag Juliet that made a splash at Sundance.
1:04.6	And there's the production we'll be talking about on this program, the latest edition of the PBS series Great Performances,
1:13.2	Romeo and Juliet, directed by the new artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company
1:18.1	of Washington, Simon Godwin. Simon joined us from a studio in Northwest D.C. to talk about the
1:25.2	play and the challenges of performing and producing it during a global
1:29.0	pandemic. We call this podcast Never Was a Story of More Woe. Simon Godwin is interviewed by Barbara
1:38.4	Bogueve. Simon, I was thinking that Romeo and Juliet must be the Shakespeare play that
1:43.0	most of us know best. I mean, it's one I
1:45.2	grew up with with, you know, I saw in theaters, but also on movie screens and all sorts of versions.
1:51.0	So how do you get yourself to see it through fresh eyes? Well, I think Romeo and Juliet, like so
1:56.7	many of Shakespeare's plays, it's a text that we think we know, but when we come back to it,
2:01.1	it's full of surprises and secrets. I think that you, I start by reading the play extremely
	...

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