*****Juliet and Romeo

Verona

photo: Lo Scaligero, creative commons license

By David Hewson – Violent gangs roaming city streets looking for trouble, murder, illicit love, poisoning, suicide, and what amounts to the sale of a human being, these are the crime elements of thriller writer David Hewson’s latest reimagining of one of Shakespeare’s works. I’m not talking about one of the Bard’s tales of the murder of kings or caesars, but a story more often thought of as the pinnacle of romance, Romeo and Juliet.

Hewson’s is a wonderfully readable and entertaining recasting of a story that itself was reconceived several times before Shakespeare took his turn with it. According to an author’s note, the fundamental story appeared in a volume published in 1476, which a Venetian writer adapted in 1531, with a subsequent version in 1562 that was translated into French, then into a poem in English, which was the version Shakespeare used in creating the play, published in 1597.

In the spirit of a story that has repeatedly evolved to fit its time, Hewson has changed some things. Most notable is the ending, which may give purists fits, but the author says, “that’s what adaptation entails.” Juliet comes first in the title, because, with Hewson’s shifted emphasis, it’s her story. She’s a self-actualized, practical young woman, while Romeo is a dreamer, a little fuzzy around the edges. She knows what she wants and it is definitely not the forced marriage to the older Count Paris that her father has in mind. “So that’s the role Count Paris will perform,” Juliet challenges her father. “Not so much my husband as your proxy son. I marry him because it’s good for business.”

In addition to immersing himself in Shakespeare’s plays, Hewson comes to this project with a solid understanding of Italian culture, reflected in the contemporary crime stories he sets in Italy. The book is a full novel rework of an award-winning audio project he did with Richard Armitage, who narrated Hewson’s exciting version of Hamlet.

Clearing out the underbrush of Elizabethan-era language and putting more modern words in the characters’ mouths creates a refreshing experience. Hewson’s brilliant adaptations Macbeth: A Novel and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel, written in collaboration with Shakespeare scholar A.J. Hartley, prepared Hewson to penetrate to the core of Shakespeare’s characters and situations, making the familiar new again. Read and enjoy!

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