Friar Laurence free to go in case of Juliet and her Romeo
on Dec 13, 2016 at 12:44 pm
The line for the Jingle Ball, which took place last night at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, stretched down 7th Street and around the corner onto F Street. Groups of huddled teenagers and young couples, arm in arm, waited in the cold for the annual holiday concert, featuring artists who were âestablished, but not Stevie Nicks established,â according to one (older) line-waiter.
A different crowd, dressed more soberly and warmly, was headed to another nearby destination â the Shakespeare Theatre Company â to fulfill their civic duty as jurors at the theatre groupâs 25th mock trial. Echoing âRomeo and Juliet,â ancient grudge had again broken to new mutiny, and a wrongful death suit filed by the Montagues and the Capulets against Friar Laurence found itself before a panel of distinguished judges: Justice Samuel Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judges Thomas Griffith, Brett Kavanaugh and Robert Wilkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
In the role of chief justice, Alito seemed quite comfortable with his opening declaration, as if he might enjoy one day being the real one: âWe will hear argument in the case of Lord and Lady Montague, Lord and Lady Capulet v. Friar Laurence. Counsel.â
Representing Friar Laurence, Elizabeth Prelogar, an assistant to the solicitor general, began by arguing that her client could not be legally considered a proximate cause in the deaths of the star-crossâd lovers because it was not foreseeable that his plan would fail. Although Friar Laurenceâs advice that Juliet fake her death with a sleeping potion seemed questionable, Prelogar insisted, âall the polling uniformly showed the plan would succeed.â Indeed, she maintained, â52% of Verona was still smartingâ from the planâs failure.
Taylor Swiftâs song âLove Story,â Prelogar continued, clearly indicates that the loversâ parents, especially Julietâs âdaddy,â Lord Capulet, were to blame. Kavanaugh pushed back against this line of reasoning, pointing out that Swiftâs song has a happy ending. âWe canât re-write history, we arenât the 9th Circuit,â he said, taking a jab at the oft-reversed court of appeals; Alito seemed to particularly enjoy this remark.
The judges questioned Friar Laurenceâs motives, suggesting that the friarâs primary interest was in glorifying himself, not providing spiritual counsel to the two children. Prelogar presented a much more humble portrait of her client: The friar only wanted to return Verona to a peaceful place in which people didnât bite their thumbs at one another in the street â to âmake Verona great again.â
The judges also wondered whether Friar Laurence had incurred liability through his decision to entrust his message to Friar John to a private email server. Prelogar pithily responded, âhe really regrets that choice.â âBut when they go low,â she continued, âthe friar goes high, as in, really, really high; heâs with Him.â
In addition, Prelogar maintained, Friar Laurence was not cowardly but prudent when he left Juliet alone in the tomb shortly before her suicide; âno one wants to be banishĂ©d,â she explained. Kavanaugh scoffed at this idea, suggesting that the friar was merely âblowing smoke, like threatening to move to New Zealand.â
On behalf of the parents, Karl Racine, attorney general for the District of Columbia, opened strongly: âCrooked Friar Laurence,â he began, and then paused, âwith his small hands,â he gestured, was to blame for the tragedy. Racine playfully wove Shakespearean titles into his opening argument: The âComedy of Errorsâ in this âWinterâs Taleâ was far from âMuch Ado About Nothing,â and, âMeasure for Measure,â the fault lay with the âcrooked friar.â Griffith matched him: The families have reconciled, so why isnât this âAllâs Well That Ends Wellâ? Racine put a blunt end to the game: âItâs about the money.â
Racine portrayed the friar not as a spiritual counselor but as a manipulative seeker of worldly fame. The friar, Racine asserted, alluding to the musical âHamilton,â thought that with his plan, the world was gonna know his name. Turning to the jury, Racine asked âWhatâs his name?â âFriar Laurence!â the jury shouted back.
Jackson suggested that if Julietâs parents had known anything about teenage psychology, they would have teased Juliet about Romeo and invited him over to dinner. Then she would have forgotten all about him. Cementing Jacksonâs point, Griffith challenged Racine, asserting that âit seems clear that the parents messed up bigly.â
Kavanaugh pointed out that there was no way Friar Laurence could have known that Friar John was âlow energy.â Griffith interjected that he thought the friarâs plan had failed because of a sudden bridge closing between Mantua and Verona. In closing, Wilkins offered another explanation: âI thought it was that Friar John lived on the Red Line.â
After an evening of mostly humorous arguments by both sides, Prelogar closed her rebuttal with a sonnet, the heroic couplet ending with the plea, âreverse.â
As he announced the verdict, Alito praised Prelogarâs poetry and indicated that he expects future briefs from the solicitor generalâs office to be written in iambic pentameter. Ruling for the friar, he explained that âthree of us subscribe to evolving standards of parenting, while two remain back in the 16th centuryâ (Griffith and Wilkins dissented). The jury as well voted overwhelmingly for Friar Laurence. Abbe Lowell, the eventâs moderator, suggested that with his legal travails behind him, Friar Laurence was now free to take over the Food and Drug Administration.
The Shakespeare Theatre Companyâs twice-annual mock trials provide an opportunity for engagement between Washingtonâs legal and artistic communities. The next mock trial, scheduled for June 19, 2017, will address legal issues in âMacbeth,â which will open at the Shakespeare Theatre on April 25.