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'& Juliet' Story & Characters | The BSB Podcast · The BSB Podcast

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Welcome kind sirs and fair maidens to this episode of the BSB Podcast.
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Today we're talking about the Broadway hit & Juliet,
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which is currently touring North America.
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But before we get into the story and characters of this musical,
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like, follow, and subscribe to us on all social media platforms at BSB.insider.
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Spoiler warning, if you haven't seen this show before and wish to remain unspoiled,
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please pause this video and come back once you've attended the tale of & Juliet.
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Joining me today is a special guest,
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an actress in her own right who has been waiting impatiently to see this show,
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Kylie Wieand How you doing?
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Hi, I'm good. How are you?
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I'm so glad that you're here.
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when this show was coming around,
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you were a hundred percent like,
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have to go see the show. Like there's two shows that kind of knew there
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was this show and there was the notebook,
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which is coming next season. And you were like,
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I have to go see those shows. ~
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Yes.
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but as we were going to & Juliet you,
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you let a bomb on me that you actually didn't know much about the show going into
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it. Correct.
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So I had heard the whole soundtrack,
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~ I knew the story based on what I had heard,
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but I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
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Which could be both good and bad depending on what kind of like theater goer
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you are.
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Yeah, I was kind of excited. Usually I'm the type of person that at least listens
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to at least two or three songs from a soundtrack.
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This soundtrack I love, obviously.
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~ So I was excited.
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which I know that we'll talk about the music in part two,
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but I do think it's interesting because this is all music you know.
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So like when you listen to it,
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you're like, that's a bop, that's a bop,
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yeah.
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that's a bop, because it's
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all pop music that everybody knows as soon as they're going into.
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So then expectations going into it were probably high.
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You were expecting a lot.
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Yes.
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I think I was expecting a lot.
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I mean, I was very excited. It's one of the shows I've been wanting to
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see for so long. So I was definitely expecting a lot.
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I mean, think some of it was met and some of it wasn't,
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but that's okay.
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So I have to say that as you know,
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but maybe the listeners don't know is that I actually saw this in New York.
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I saw it with ~ the original cast,
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though we had a few understudies.
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It was very early on. ~ It was one of those times,
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one of the first trips I went on with RJ,
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my co-host who's not here right now.
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He's currently out of the
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Ugh.
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city and having fun with his family,
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which he's allowed to do sometimes.
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~
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You
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When we went, it was one of the ones that were like,
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OK, we're just going to reach out and see if we can get press tickets.
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And we did. And so we went in.
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We were like the third row from the stage.
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We were living our best life. And this show kind of blew us out of the water.
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And I think that's a really interesting place to be because
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we had high expectations. I feel like I talked about the show very highly
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to you leading up to us going.
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I was like, this is one of the best shows you're ever going to see.
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This is a show that's definitely
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One that I love to go back to New York and see.
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I love to enjoy this show, the music,
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the storylines, the messages, they're all there.
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And I think that this is one that also sometimes gets a little
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bit lost in translation. Like I think there's pieces of this that
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get lost in translation as you're bringing it to a touring production that
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Mm-hmm.
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you almost seem like a stationary home for some of it to make sense.
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Yeah, I mean get that. It's also hard like,
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so is a jukebox musical. We love like songs that we know,
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but for an audience standpoint,
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as someone who like is not a regular theater goer,
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it's like it can't be hard to understand and like grasp
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Correct.
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what's going on.
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And I do say, I think that this does bring a specific type of people to the crowd.
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I think that there are people
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For sure.
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that are like less musically inclined than we are.
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You know what mean?
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Mm-hmm.
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Like people who are casual theater goers,
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people who are just there to like,
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But I think that's the appeal Like it's songs,
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~ for sure. Absolutely.
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you
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know, you're gonna love it
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And then you think about like the writer of the book.
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It's a David West Reed is actually a writer of Schitt's Creek.
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So it's got that comedy piece to it.
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You know what I mean? Like it has music,
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you know, it stories that you're going to laugh about,
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maybe stories that you've been poking fun at some of the people that
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are coming there. Like there's a lot of mass appeal to this.
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Um,
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Yeah.
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but when we jump into the story,
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what I love about this story is I'm pretty sure everybody who listens
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by now knows this. I'm sure you know this too,
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but I love a story that takes
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takes a story we know and then like changes it up a little bit.
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I love a twisted tale.
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Mm-hmm.
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I love a wicked. So like, Ann Juliet's right up my...
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story in a story.
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Yeah!
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So how did you feel going into the story,
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feeling that it was like the Ann,
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but maybe Juliet doesn't kill herself.
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Okay, like, love that, obviously.
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I was, so like I said, I didn't know much about going into it.
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I was curious to see how it was gonna play out once I realized that it
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was a story and a story. I'm like,
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how are we gonna end this? Like,
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that's kind of hard to do in, what,
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two and a half hours? Like,
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Yeah.
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I mean, you're not only like doing a story and a story,
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you're changing a story completely.
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Yes.
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well-known
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story.
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which I think is an
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interesting place to start too.
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Obviously, I'll start at the beginning,
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is that the story tells, it's like a frame story.
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It's the story of William and his wife who decide that they're gonna,
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well, his wife decides that they're gonna rewrite the end of Romeo and Juliet.
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And then it's a story that kind of spirals from there.
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But really it's kind of like they're stepping into the story,
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they're stepping out of the story,
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they're kind of the narrators of the story.
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But truthfully,
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you
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it's kind of this interesting,
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I can think of another way that you could tell the story like
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& Juliet without having like narrators to step in and out of the story
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if that makes sense.
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I think I did love it though. I think I loved how they did insert themselves.
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It added another layer almost.
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I'm like,
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Yeah.
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oh, we're going to stop here. But it was also the play to the audience.
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But the play to the audience on the stage,
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the players.
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Yes.
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Does it ruin the magic? Okay, so I think when I saw this in Broadway,
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I thought it was like they were magically stepping in and out of a story.
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I think here I felt a little more like it was actors who were going along with
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a feuding husband and wife to tell the story that they were kind of making up.
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I feel like it wasn't as like magical of like,
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you're stepping into like a mythical story almost.
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You know I mean? Like feel like there was a difference in that.
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Yeah,
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I think that energy, like, it definitely wasn't,
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like, magical in a sense,
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but I think, like, it's, it's quick,
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like, it's fast humor.
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Sure.
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Absolutely. Because I remember when they,
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spoiler people, when they broke the quill in the show,
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on
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Mm-hmm.
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Broadway, it felt like the magic spell had been broken.
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Where this one just felt like it was,
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Yeah. It felt like a breakup.
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yeah,
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yeah, yeah, felt like we can't write the story anymore on paper.
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It's not like we're magically writing a story into existence.
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Mm-hmm.
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But what I do love about this show is that it takes the love story trope.
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Obviously, Romeo and Juliet, even though it's the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,
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people like to think it's a love story.
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~ But I love that they take this story and they make it like a love story
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for self-love. ~
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Thanks
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I think that I really was picking up on three different kind of stories in there,
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but I was wondering, did you kind of see that aspect of it?
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I was literally just about to say,
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was like, was it self love? Absolutely.
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But was it also like rediscovering a love
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for like a partner? Yes.
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Yeah.
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But it was also like love for everyone.
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Like one of the main, whatever,
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that's what we're here for. In the story,
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~ William's like, should May be like a girl name?
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and Anne says, is that any of your business?
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I
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Yes. Yes.
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loved that.
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I think
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it's so intelligent on how they portrayed love.
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it's, right. There is still romantic love because Romeo is still like
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a pursuing Juliet. Spoiler alert,
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he comes back people. ~ And then there's also Juliet
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It's not good.
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and Frankie and there's Frankie and May and there's Anne and there's Shakespeare.
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But a lot of them go on this like journey of like trying to find themselves.
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You Juliet, she runs away because she doesn't want to go to a convent.
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And she ends up trying to get married to Frankie because she doesn't want to.
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And she almost goes through with it until Frankie's like,
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I gotta love myself more in this girl.
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And Julia ends up loving herself enough to be like,
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Romeo, we're not getting back together right away.
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Like we can date.
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Mm-hmm.
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We can find ourselves again. ~
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Yeah.
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I feel like this is even mirrored in Anne's story too,
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where she's like, I've never been anybody but Shakespeare's wife.
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Like, who am I?
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like
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which is great
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Yeah.
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that's a great love that for you but you can be so much more
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Yes. Which I think, to your point,
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when you argue about it, like May's storyline really does reflect that because
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May is all about accepting themselves and all about having people accept them
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and not being put into a box. Like,
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I feel like it's the most apparent example of that kind
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of acceptance that we see throughout the show.
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⁓ I loved the bathroom scene where know,
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May just taken a second and at the end ⁓ he's like,
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Juliet will you still love me?
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⁓ Of course! ⁓
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Yes.
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Of course she does! That's how it should
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It doesn't even question it.
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be. ⁓ No, not even, it's not even a thought in her head like,
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⁓ do I love you because you're different or do I not love
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you because you're different? Not at all.
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⁓
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I remember being in Broadway and when that
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you
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scene happened and then we had May sing,
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not a girl and they get a woman,
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there was three people in front of us who could not stop
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laughing. They were straight up chuckling so much that they had
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to cover their mouths. And I think that what I loved about the Fisher Theater
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is that we didn't have people chuckling.
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This wasn't like ~ a point where like,
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I feel like it felt more accepting in that moment of being like the,
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Yeah.
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we're
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all just here on this earth, we're all on a spinning.
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ball of land around us, ball of sun.
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Like, why does it matter who you want to be or who you want to love?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I did love that. I loved the breakaway and then right back into the song.
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it's so good.
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As I say, feel like May was the one character you connected with the
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you
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most.
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I'm about it.
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just like loved...
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authentic they were even when they were lying to their best friend honestly about
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hey you're
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Yeah.
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to me with.
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It was just like trying to be a friend but trying to balance like their selves
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at the same time.
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Which I would argue, I'm not gonna disclose too much about your life here,
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but I feel like that's who you are as a person though.
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I feel like you
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100%.
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try to find that balance of like,
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love you as a person, but also I'm trying to respect myself here.
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Yeah, and boundaries are hard.
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Space is hard.
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It's true,
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and may have some trouble with boundaries here.
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But they all kind of have boundaries
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For sure.
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issues if you think about it.
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I have to say that for some reason,
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the storyline that I'm always drawn to is that of Anne's,
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which I don't know if it's because Anne's always seems a little older than these
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other people, like a little more mature,
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a little more, but like to see her kind of like be in a relationship
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and have been in a relationship that's like not working and then either,
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and choose like, choose yourself,
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but then also choose to like, maybe we can refocus on that love.
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Like there's so much maturity to that.
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I think that she brings a lot of maturity to the show.
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And I just love the journey that Anne goes on from very early,
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almost like whimsical, I just want to drink,
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I want to party, I want to have fun,
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to the end, actively choosing both herself and William.
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Well that like I loved her journey honestly like her finding
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her own identity again because she's at home while William is out with
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her what three kids I think it was
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Yeah.
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with her three kids so all she knows about her identity is to be a mother so
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Yeah.
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when she finally gets into like writing this new story it's like a whole
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new journey for her and it's almost like she starts over a
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Like she's learning how to be a friend because she writes herself in
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as one of Juliet's best
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Yeah.
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friends. Like so she's learning how to be a friend.
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She's learning how to be like good and bad.
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So it's like a whole new journey for her all over again.
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And along the way, she gets that moment with me of learning how to think
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of somebody else before yourself.
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But she also gets Juliet's bit of like,
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I don't want to call Juliet selfish.
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That's not what I mean. But I can't think of another word where
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she actively is like, no, I'm not going to do this again.
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No, I'm not
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Mm-hmm.
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going to a convent. I'm not going to go be a nun.
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I'm not going to do these things.
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And there's that little bit of like...
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stubbornness maybe and she and I love that Anne gets to see that too and be like,
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these are things that you're allowed to have.
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Well, it's
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like she was writing it in for Juliet at first and then towards the end
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I feel like it was especially at the beginning of Act 2 like Anne
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and William are both like fighting
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Yeah.
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using
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Romeo and Juliet against each other but I feel like towards the end
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it was actually like no, is writing her story and now we have four lines
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now we have Anne, Juliet, Romeo,
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and William
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Yeah.
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Yes.
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Speaking of Romeo, I always love Romeo too.
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I don't know what it is about the character.
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I loved it so much.
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Okay, okay,
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okay. I just had to make sure that I wasn't the only one here.
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Like, he's kind of douchey, but like,
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in a very sweet way.
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So I kind of expected to see rum-
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Okay.
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storyline
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at least like flashbacks something like somewhere
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so to not see him until almost halfway through that was like
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a breath of fresh air again I was like
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Yeah.
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oh my god like who are
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I loved it.
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And I think he's such a cool plot point too,
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because like, you know, listeners,
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if you haven't seen it and you want to know,
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we get to the point where Juliet goes to Paris,
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she finds Frankie, she's going to get married to Frankie because she doesn't want
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to go back to her home and be in a nunnery.
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And Juliet,
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mean, and ~ Shakespeare doesn't like this,
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that his story is being taken over.
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So he resurrects Romeo. And it's in this moment where,
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when I saw it the first time, Kylie,
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I shit you not, my jaw was on the ground.
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Hahaha
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I literally was just staring
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at the stage like, this is the best thing I've ever seen.
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What the fuck is going on? Like.
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Literally,
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literally. And like, I don't know if you caught this,
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but in the beginning, Romeo lays his jacket down.
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Yes.
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stole or whatever it is. He lays it down and I loved how when he came back
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to life he picked it up again.
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It was like, nope, I'm back right where I left off.
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It's so smart.
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It felt like time travel a little bit to me.
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like, those are the things about the show that I feel so well put together
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is that like, it's a very convoluted story when you sit and think about it.
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If like you were to boil it down to the pieces,
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which when I was trying to write this up,
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I was like, how do you describe this show?
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~ But when you start to take the pieces,
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like when you look at it, you're like,
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this is a soap opera for teens,
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but also the pieces are so intricate that you almost,
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there's nothing you could really take out to make it make sense,
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you know?
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Even talking about it now, like,
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yeah, there's that. my god, wait,
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there's that. The more you break it down,
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the more there's like, later after like...
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Yeah, I mean, for example, we didn't even talk about ~ the maid,
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the ~ angelique. Yeah.
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Angelique? my gosh. my gosh,
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She's so good.
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she is
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so good. She, I wish,
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And she has her own romance?
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I know, an unexpected one at that.
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she was to go 600 miles away to only
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go back to the exact same place and run into the exact same person like
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if that's not divine
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No way.
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timing I don't know what else
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Yeah, and I love that she was kind of like the old love in this too,
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where she's just like, you get a second chance.
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And she's kind of framing it to Juliet that like,
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sometimes life brings you things.
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And I don't think that Juliet would maybe even have accepted Romeo back into
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her life if it wasn't for Angelique and Lance.
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You know, but I think even for Romeo and for herself,
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like, Angelique was against it completely.
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Was like, nope, you're not gonna love me.
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I have to take care of Julia. I can't do this.
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you have to love me right
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Yeah.
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which was so good.
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And like that's these, all these pieces come together and it does make
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a really good story. Like I will say this.
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Does it give you the message of love and acceptance?
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Yes. Are there some people
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no.
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who are going to probably think that it's maybe a little bit bash over the head?
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Yes. But I think that's the charm of what & Juliet is,
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is that the story is, it's charming.
18:28
It is charming to watch the show.
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Yeah.
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Well, and it's like, are we breaking it down?
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Yes. Is there so many layers behind it?
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Yes. If you're a normal person,
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do you have to do that? No. Like you can just take it at face value and be like,
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this person went on their own journey and this person went on their journey
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and everyone loves each other.
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Like it
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Absolutely.
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doesn't have to be crazy.
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Is there any stories that you didn't like in the show?
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~
18:58
know if it was just like Frankie right
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at first I just I think
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I wanted more from him right at first but I don't know if that
19:11
was just like the storyline or what but
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I think I wanted more from him at first and I'm gonna got we got there obviously
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I also think that Frankie's storyline is the hardest to get behind,
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because I think that he is, and this is where I struggle,
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so he feels villainous without being the villain.
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at all? Well, maybe a little.
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Yeah, because... Well...
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And like, if I think about it actually,
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I think it's more like he's the villain in his own story almost,
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like he's hiding behind himself.
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And so like that's how it presents.
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Like he doesn't want to disappoint his father,
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you know?
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And that's what it truly is. I think that the worst that I think that he's done is
20:08
rejecting May. You know what mean?
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Like, I think...
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But it wasn't even
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like rejecting me, it was like,
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you played me. You made me feel like a joke.
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Yes, and that is not great. That's not a great feeling.
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But also when you think about how young they are,
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we've all did stupid stuff when we were young,
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especially in the name of love.
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You're like, don't remind me.
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I'm like don't bring me back to those years.
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I think that that is still the only storyline the second time seeing
20:40
it that I really did not connect with the way I wanted to was because I really,
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I think that I also, this is nothing against Noah Marlowe,
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who plays Francois. We had an understudy in New York for Frankie,
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who was giving a thousand and 10%.
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And so the char, the geekiness came off as charming in a way.
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And this one, I think Frankie has written a little standoffish like,
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almost dare I say like autistic coded,
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you know what I mean? Like just very much like kind of blunt in a
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way that he doesn't mean to, but he also doesn't just have
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Mm-hmm.
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the words to say what he wants to say.
21:18
I think that more. just don't think he knows how to say what he wants to say.
21:22
Like he's, I think he's so worried about like disappointing his father,
21:28
you know, his brothers have gone off to war.
21:31
You know, he's following these footsteps so he just doesn't know how to get past the
21:39
Yeah. And I think it also, I think the only other person that felt
21:44
a little more villainous in this,
21:45
and I say this with, we had a great Shakespeare in New York.
21:49
We had a great Shakespeare here.
21:50
I feel like this Shakespeare was
21:51
Dylan.
21:52
a very villainous. He was kind of a dick.
21:55
felt that way too. Like, why are you so stuck in your ways that you can't
22:02
let your be anything more? Like,
22:05
why are you good to do it all?
22:07
Yeah, I'm... And it's interesting,
22:11
because I'm really interested in how Drew's doing it.
22:13
Our BFF, Drew's doing it on Broadway.
22:15
Because I'm wondering how he's portraying it,
22:16
Drew Gehling, have to see you,
22:18
angel.
22:22
if it's a little more
22:22
goofy, because he's got that little bit of goofy charm to him.
22:25
~ But CJ Eldred did such a good villain in Shakespeare that
22:31
you actually kind of hate him even in the end.
22:33
You're like, you're kind of awful.
22:35
Like, you're kind of a bad person.
22:37
Okay, so I didn't hate on him yet,
22:39
but he was pissing me off.
22:42
Ha ha!
22:42
I was like, why can't she be a person too?
22:46
But then at the end it was like,
22:50
he's explaining his actual love for her and having empathy.
22:57
I'm like, that's your wife, bro.
22:59
Love her.
23:00
Yeah, the father.
23:03
I would say the father of your children,
23:05
but she's the mother of your children.
23:08
Literally
23:09
You know, I think that it's interesting when you look at something like recently
23:12
the movie Hamnet that came out and you find out that maybe they lost a kid.
23:15
was that a part of this? And then it's not explained that like
23:19
he was distancing himself because he couldn't handle the emotions.
23:22
But also I think that it doesn't matter for the story of Anjuli yet.
23:26
Like you needed somebody
23:27
No.
23:27
who is a little more villainous and he took on that role of being like slightly
23:32
gaslighting his wife, you know?
23:34
It's my way or the highway.
23:36
Yeah. And listen, Backstreet Boys
23:39
don't always get it their way.
23:42
which I did love that though, it was pretty good.
23:46
~ But with that, are actually running out of time,
23:48
so stay tuned to our closing episode of the & Juliet discussion.
23:52
But before we let you go, did you enjoy the story of & Juliet?
23:55
Who was your favorite character?
23:56
Let us know in the comments. Thank you again for
23:58
Thanks
23:58
joining us here in our box seats.
24:00
Until next curtain call.