Deconstruction and Reconstruction: Desire, Trauma, and the Remaking of Family Myth in The Capulets

By Elizabeth Jia

The Capulets, choreographed and directed by Wade Schaaf, Artistic Director of the Chicago Repertory Ballet (CRB), stands as one of the most audacious deconstructions and reconstructions of Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet. Recognized as one of the top ten dance productions of the year in Chicago, this work shifts the focus away from the central tragic romance, instead turning a brutally precise spotlight onto the internal dynamics of the Capulet family. Through a series of subversive emotional relationships—the forbidden love between Juliet's mother and her cousin Tybalt, Capulet's bisexual desire for Paris, and the resulting intergenerational trauma—it completely rewrites the psychological roots of the familial feud, providing a shocking yet logically coherent psychological footnote for Juliet's "love at first sight" with Romeo.

The most striking breakthrough of this production lies in its complete shift in narrative focus. The familial conflict, traditionally relegated to the background, is thrust to the forefront, becoming the center of an emotional maelstrom. Choreographer Wade keenly seizes upon the latent clues of familial repression in Shakespeare's original text and amplifies them into an exhibition of structural family pathology. Juliet's infatuation with Romeo is no longer merely the love of two teenagers, but a desperate quest for "normal" emotional connection within a distorted family ecosystem of misaligned relationships. The Montague family, represented by Romeo, might not be an object of hatred in Juliet's perception, but rather a symbolic salvation from the emotional ruins of her own family. This reframing endows "love at first sight" with a new psychological depth—it is no longer just a Romantic instant spark, but an instinctive rebellion against a suffocating family structure.

The boldness of the dance choreography and narrative is staggering. The extended bedroom scene between Paris and Lord Capulet, lasting an entire act, is not only a daring display of sensuality but also a complex exploration of power dynamics and gender politics. Capulet's bisexual identity and his desire for Paris form a cruel contrast with his political maneuvering over his daughter's marriage, revealing the intertwined workings of desire and power within the patriarchal system. The relationship between Tybalt and Juliet's mother—an absurd fusion of enemy status and physical intimacy—becomes the ultimate metaphor for the conflict between familial hatred and personal desire. These "explosive" plot points are not shocking for shock's sake; they attempt to excavate the repressed emotional undercurrents beneath the mechanism of hatred, showcasing how violence and intimacy can absurdly coexist in the depths of human nature.

However, the work faces significant challenges in harmonizing form and content. As audience feedback indicates, the failure to effectively distinguish the two families through costume color results in a visually blurred narrative thread. When the plot complexity reaches this level, the clarity of dance vocabulary and visual sign systems becomes paramount. While modern ballet excels at expressing abstract emotions and psychological states, it can easily create comprehension gaps when handling multi-threaded, complex narratives without effective visual storytelling aids. This explains why "not understanding even after reading the synopsis" resonates with some viewers—a perfect balance has yet to be found between the bodily narrative of dance and the intricate plot of the drama.

Compared to the successful use of the symbolic character "Death" in the French musical version of Romeo and Juliet, The Capulets seems to lean more towards the excavation of psychological realism than the construction of a symbolic system. This choice grants the work a deep psychological impact but sacrifices some of the epic sense and tragic tension of capricious fate. The Chicago Tribune's comment that "they must have seen a lot of therapists" accurately captures the work's persistent exploration of family trauma and the repair process—the seemingly "happy" ending in the play is, in reality, a difficult intergenerational reconciliation after traversing emotional ruins, an imperfect healing of traumatic memory over time.

As a ballet focused on a side story, the value of The Capulets lies not only in its bold deconstruction of a classic but also in the fundamental question it raises: when we shift narrative authority from the protagonists to the supporting characters, from the center to the margins, what suppressed emotional truths and historical logics do we unearth? Wade's direction reveals that behind Juliet's choice of "true love" may lie the desperate figure of a young girl searching for an oasis in an emotional wasteland. This production may have its flaws in narrative clarity. Still, it undoubtedly, with remarkable artistic courage, opens new possibilities for the contemporary reconstruction of classical narratives—beneath its explosive surface lies a serious inquiry into the complexity of human nature and an unrelenting exploration of the mechanisms that generate love and hatred. Dissatisfied with merely repeating the eternal myth of love, it insists on unveiling the bloody, traumatic family history behind that myth, making it one of the most discussed ballet works of the year.