At times the tale of Romeo and Juliet feels as dead as the star-crossed lovers themselves. We already have West Side Story, Leonardo DiCaprio as a knight in shining armor, and a countless number of loosely interpreted romances between two people from feuding families. But that didn’t stop Red Theater founder Aaron Sawyer from tackling it anyway.
It was thanks in great part to the interpreters that the show ended up getting off the ground. Once rehearsals began Sawyer and the rest of the cast and crew realized that the translation process actually helped everyone understand Shakespeare’s words more than ever before. “In a hearing world you get bombarded by these words and your brain can’t keep up,” Sawyer says. “But in sign language you suddenly understand everything, and it’s so much more visceral.”
