Charlie, 1959

Last night was the opening performance of “R&J” at the Mine is Yours theater in Los Angeles. My son Charlie was in it and if I could have cloned myself I would have been there to see him as Husband Capulet in the show billed as “a gender reversed classic.”

It is Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” but in a version in which all the male parts have become female roles and vice versa. In this production, Romeo is Romea, played by a woman; Juliet is Julian, played by a man. Charlie, as Husband Capulet, says the same lines as Lady Capulet would in the original version. Only the pronouns are changed to keep things straight, so-to-speak.

Charlie, 2011

The theater’s website had this to say about the production: The Montagues, and in particular Romea, are wild and Bohemian. The Capulets are traditional and religious, led by a hot-headed woman and her reticent and timid husband. The most chaste and devout of the Capulets is young Julian. The feud between these families is deep-seated, and the violence simmering in the streets of Verona can no longer be ignored. And that’s all before the play even begins.

            Also this: In Shakespeare’s time, people went to hear a play. Today, we go see a play. “Hear the play like you’ve never seen it before.”

Charlie in “Measure for Measure” 2012

And the website had this to say about Charlie: CHARLES M. HOWELL IV (CAPULET’S HUSBAND): Most recently played Polonius in Hamlet. He has worked with many of the people in this company at the Theatricum Botanicum, in The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Measure for Measure, where his Barnardine was hailed by the L.A. Times as a “first-rate comic performance.” He has won three Emmys as a writer and producer on the animated TV shows Pinky & the Brain and Animaniacs, under executive producer Steven Spielberg.

            All I could say was in a phone call by voice message: “Break a leg, Charlie!” And I hope he did!