important event in our repertoire. 100%.com, that secretary clinton was funding campaign from proceeds from a trafficking ring, had following headline. "romeo & juliet" death a hoax. another plot to undermine the church. [laughter] you are very much part of this. as well as being the audience you are our collective jury. you will be asked to serve as the final jury vote with the following question, the assuming parents the montagues and cap you lets, pair some league responsibility for causing deaths, who is more legally liable for the deaths of "romeo & juliet."

vote red. you will have your chips i hope. if you believe fryer lawrence is nor responsible and blue if you believe the parents. lord and lady montague and lord and lady cap you let are more liable. pamela token. [applause] counsel for the appellate, friar lawrence, solicitor to the attorney general, and her co-counsel, deputy solicitor general michael drebin. [applause] counsel to the plaintiff, appellees, lord and lady

montague, lord and lady capulet and. [applause] and now of course the members of our esteemed bench, the supreme court of the principality of varrone that. they are, united states supreme court justice samuel alito. presiding united states court of appeal, circuit judge, thomas griffith. brett kavanaugh, judge robert l. wilkins, from the united states district court, judge brown jackson. [applause] and now, i turn it over to the marshall. >> all rise. o, yea, the supreme court of the

principality of varrone that is now in session. please be seated. >> we will hear argument in the case of lord and lady montague and lord and lady capulet versus friar lawrence. counsel, are you ready? >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court, plaintiffs seek to hold friar lawrence liable for spiritual malpractice, with all due

respect to this court the friar answers only to a higher authority for that offense. if the court finds this baseless claim the floodgates will be open. what is next? is lady capulet spill if she sues hot chocolate in her lap after going through a fast-food-drive-through. is lord montague seeking millions of damages if his dry cleaner loses his favorite pair of pantalon in s. as in the claim. this has to stop. even if the court could articulate a duty of care in this context the friar did not breach it. the plaintiffses claim his plan to help "romeo & juliet" was convoluted. i will grant it was a bit of a hail mary, but -- [laughter] the plaintiffs are wrong to say that it was foreseeable that the plan would fail.

in fact, friar lawrence looked at all the polls before he implemented this plan and they uniformly showed that the plan was would succeed. "the new york times" had it at 99%. [laughter] so this is case of massive polling failure. and i can assure you, that friar lawrence and 52% of verona are still smarting about it. [laughter]. the parents, bear responsibility for the tragic fate of their children. at first, by per pest waiting this silly feud, they basically assured that "romeo & juliet" would fall in love. everyone knows that teenagers do precisely the opposite of what their parents want them to do. that is like being a teenager 101. the psychological literature bears that out. i'm speaking of course about taylor swift. [laughter]. she wrote an amazing song about

romeo and juliet, about a love story which i expect she will win the nobel prize of literature. >> her song, her song replaced the tragic ending with a happy ending and, this court can't rewrite history like that. we're not the ninth circuit. [laughter]. >> well i think it is fair to say maybe she hadn't read the record in this case when she wrote that song, justice cavanagh. >> it is interesting that you mentioned the prize because i am troubled by friar lawrence's motives. he readily agrees to perform this marriage because he think it may bring peace between these two warring families. i think that he was really, what he was really interested in

primary was winning the nobello. we know people will go to any end to do that. >> i don't think the record accords with that characterization, chief justice alito. i think it is clear friar lawrence confronted civil strife, brawls in the street, people biting their thumbs against each other and he just wanted to make verona great again. [applause] >> that brings up an interesting question to me. isn't there a jurisdictional question lurking here? isn't the prince the real culprit here? he allowed the feud to ruin verona. couldn't he have solved the problem by building a wall? between the cap you lets and montagues? he could have persuaded banchuet to pay for it. seems we can't determine blame here without taking up real

political question. should the prince have built the wall? now your office argued for an extensive application of the political question doctrine. perhaps we should follow that case and follow the panel of d.c. circuit. what say ye? >> well i think thou's question is really on point and what i would say if it's a political question, then this suit should never proceeded and we would fully respect this court's decision actually -- >> but isn't everything a political question? >> these stays, yes. i would take to get back to justice a leto's point because i really think friar lawrence was in this for himself. he wanted to be the hero. you don't get any opportunities to save the day and he was not throwing away his shot. tell me, tell me why isn't that something we should take into consideration? >> i think his motives were entirely pure. keep in mind that

"romeo & juliet" came to him. they dragged him into this mess. he wasn't instigating this for his own glory. that news the parents are really proper focal point of scrutiny here. they pair responsibility what happened to "romeo & juliet." >> she wrote a story about love story but wrote another song called, bad blood. wasn't friar lawrence aware of the fact we were in this situation? >> he certainly was. again it is not his fault that the parents didn't have these channels of communication open with their children and weren't able to communicate with them. i mean it wasn't so hard. all the parents had to do was friended their kids on facebook. i get that teenagers love that maybe if they are had done so they would have realized something was up and romeo and juliet listed their relationship status as it's complicated. >> was friar lawrence throwing

these herbs? [laughter] is verona a jurisdiction where people are allowed to do that? >> for medicinal purposes like these, absolutely. [laughter]. i think this court can take judicial notice of the decriminalization movement that speaking to principalities right now. >> you call in your brief, and you call the friar a quote, blameless clergyman but wasn't there a better way for hem to pursue peace between the montagues and the capulets? how about a sermon? how about binge go at the parish or a pot-luck dinner? why did he have to do this? >> he tried all of those steps first and believe it or not none of them worked, none did the trick. this was only thing that was left. not like it was so complicated. four-step plan juliet is appear dead and and and rescue him from

the crypt and live happily every after. >> getting word to him, he could have, used a better means of communication, a secure email server would have -- [laughter] saved everyone a lot of hassle. >> he really regrets that choice. [laughter] you talk a lot about parents knowing their children. it seems like friar lawrence didn't know teenagers at all. if he waited like two days before he executed this plan, you know, romeo would have found another woman. paris seems like a pretty nice guy. i'm sure 24 hours later the whole thing would have blown over. >> this wouldn't be the greatest love story of all time if that had though. we have to resist that version of the facts justice jackson. >> counsel, one thing bothers me about your argument, you compare

it to avi-d, you compare it to the hatfields and mccoast. how old were the hatfields and mccoys when they were married? >> they were quite young as well. maybe not quite as young. >> they were 18, 19, 21. that is what is different about this case, isn't it? she is 13. >> it is true juliet was of tender years -- >> that is 8th grade, right? [laughter] an 8th grader. >> keep in mind justice griffith, the plaintiffs were trying to marry juliet off to paris. they wanted to get her to do that to get instant celebrity because he was kinsman of the prince. there are cases of that drew barrymore with her drug use and low lindsay lohan with her dui and mile sy cyrus with her twerking. i hope i don't have to define

the term with the bench. >> thank you. >> if it pleases opposing counsel i'm sure he would do a demonstration during his time at the lecturn. [laughter] >> counsel, it is my understanding that friar lawrence really wanted to get a reality show out of all of this. doesn't the record reflect that's what really his motive was? >> certainly he is in negotiations for that now but i think that has nothing to do with the events here, if anything would only help him pay a judgment in this case. [laughter]. i think it is important to keep in mind what kind of teenagers "romeo & juliet" were. to shows the parents were not in sync with their kids. they were millenials. they were millenials of the 16th century and they were millenials no less. they were trying to marry juliet off to paris. everyone knows you can't push millenials out of the house too soon. they are supposed to live at home until they're 20, you know. they might go off to college but they come back home again.

they stay on their parents health insurance until they're 26. although we'll see what happens with that one. [laughter] >> is it your argument it isn't foreseeable she might actually die during a plot in which she faked her death? >> that is exactly right. i think that is an air-tight legal defense because it wasn't foreseeable that something could go wrong with this plan. straight up. [laughter] i think as well, that when you're looking again at the parents culpability here, romeo is a, frankly a pretty violent young man. just raises a lot of questions about what these parents did. did they let him watch too many episodes of "game of thrones"? maybe he played too many violent videogames. >> do you think that the friar was a profile in courage in this case? he knows juliet threatened to commit suicide if things did not

work out with romeo. he sees her in the crypt and romeo is dead and he says, well, i'm just leaving? >> you know, i wouldn't say that shows consciousness of blame. maybe more a little bit of cowardice but that is not make him liable in this case. there is no duty to aid if you're going to have to put yourself in that kind of grave danger. he thought maybe he would be tortured or put to death or banished. >> he chose his life over hers? >> no one wants to be banishedeth, justice. [laughter] the plaintiffs have lodged all these allegations about him and tried to impugn his character, to that i would just say when they go low, the friar goes high. [laughter].

really, really high literally. he is with him. and that just brings me pack to my first point, really this court can't find this claim cog noisable, because it would encroach on principles of religious liberty here. the friar testified if this case -- >> let me see if i get this right. what is the religious liberty interest here? the religious liberty after cleric to marry off a 13-year-old against her parents's wishes is that the nature of the claim. >> it doesn't sound so good when you put it that way. [laughter] >> just looking for clarification. >> let me reframe the claim slightly if i could. >> okay, thank you. >> i think this is a claim of a religious counselor who is trying to aid, with his eclose eas tick call counsel. >> was he involved with a lot of

weddings with a 13-year-old, was that part of his ministry. >> the regular practice that seemed to accord with the period of the time. you need to look at counselor relationship. i think it is clear from that most revered of precedents, the lemon test, that is the beloved by jurists around the world and commentators too, this would be a clear entanglement with religious doctrine and something the court can't embark on in this case? >> how about this rule? parents get to tell the 13-year-olds about their romantic life. how is that for a rule? >> i think teenagers would be very receptive to that one. i think that, you know, my instinct, that will be a go. i will let friar lawrence know in the future that is the right thing to do. >> is part of your defense that juliet was going to kill herself anyway being forced to marry paris? >> that is exactly right.

she had come to the friar's cell and told him if he didn't intervene and do something she would commit suicide. >> everyone knew she was blowing smoke. like threatening to move to new zealand. [laughter]. >> well it is true that 13-year-old girls can be a little unpredictable but i think the friar reasonably judged this one was a real threat and so he took reasonable measures to try to forestall that harm. the fact his plan was ultimately unsuccessful, although he did everything in in is power to keep that from happening means that he can't be held liable in this case. >> did the sleeping position have a clinical trial before it was used? >> the friar was in preliminary stages of testing that one. it has now been pulled from the market. [laughter]. i will reserve the rest of my time for rebuttal. [applause]

>> may it please the honorable court, crooked friar lawrence -- [laughter] with his small hands -- [laughter] and by his negligent behavior has created a sad "winter's tale". this negligent behavior is clearly not much ado about nothing. this is a tragedy of errors where measure for measure the fault indisputably lies with friar lawrence. specifically, he was negligent, and crooked in four respects. first, in an attempt to resolve the dispute between two

gentlemen of verona, he married an emotionally volatile young romeo to a 13-year-old juliet behind their parents' back. second, he gave a 13-year-old juliet a position of baleful weeds and precious juice flowers from his mystical garden and your honor -- >> counsel, i'm confused about why you're bringing this -- i thought the families were happy with what happened at the end? you know, put statues in the town square. why isn't all, all's well that ends well, and i blew that line. alls well that ends well. why isn't it that? >> it is about the money. [laughter]. we're here because under the law the well-recognized tort law, negligence occurred, a breach of the duty, was in fact owe curved, and we want to get paid. [laughter] >> does the church have deep pockets? [laughter]

>> as i understand it, your honor, the church's pockets are quite deep. and with your honor's ruling we can go and find those pockets. sadly, unlike anthony and cleopatra, these two-star-crossed lovers never made it to their 12th night, all because of the secret marriage a perilous position, reckless planning and as one of your honor's indicated, cowardly abandonment. the responsibility for this tragedy falls squarely on one man's shoulder, the man who admitted the tragedy of "romeo & juliet"'s death was in his own words, miscarried by my fault. and as es the case of our country's first treasury secretary, alexander hamilton, the world is going to know his name. [laughter]. what's his name?

>> frye a lawrence. >> do you think your client has any responsibility here? >> to be honest with you, your honor, i don't particularly care for my client. [laughter] >> well, possibly with good reason, particularly -- >> that's why i'm not arguing that they don't have 30% responsibility. >> what would you say about the behavior of mr. cap you let, that when he finds out juliet will not go ahead with the marriage to paris? he calls her a word, i don't even know what they mean. young baggage, disobedient wretch, that one i understand, puling fool and whining mammoth. what is a whining mammoth? is that a wholely mammoth? >> your honor, i can submit a supplemental brief. this is the point, your honor,

it is that type of behavior certainly on the point of father capulet and indeed of lady capulet was in dire need of what true spiritual counseling. spiritual counseling that crooked lawrence refused to give >> counselor, he says if you don't marry, if you don't marry countie paris, this guy is a county paris, i will throw you out of the house. you will die in the street that is the way parent took place in verona? >> your honor, we have come a long way in regards to our parenting. i indicate to you, most importantly had crooked lawrence understood the graph i t of the culture, the gravity of the circumstance, the strife that occurred, he would have called a time out, not rushed to marry

young juliet to romeo and instead, sought to counsel the parents on the real meaning of love and how to love their children. >> what kind of family forces their daughter to marry a guy named paris? [laughter] >> they call those families, franko-phone. >> counsel, why shouldn't we find that the montagues and capulets breached a duty to act as normal parents do faced what their teenagers wasn't but the parents don't want? parents understand that teenagers do exactly the opposite what parents tell hem to do. all they had to do in the situation was just tease juliet about liking romeo. the whole thing would have been over in 15 minutes, right? they should have said to romeo, why don't you invite juliet over to dinner so we can get to know

her, right? >> in hindsight is 20/20 indeed. the reality the only person who knew all of the facts knew about the love of juliet, knew about juliet's love for romeo, knew "romeo & juliet" were suicidal, was not the parents but my friend much. >> there are two problems with attempt to evade -- >> you're being nice. [laughter] >> there are two that i want to mention now. [laughter] the first one is, your client, lord capulet concedes that "romeo & juliet" were sacrifices of their families enmity. more important than that, the prince blames the families. what deference do we owe the executive in its analysis of the causes of this social unrest?

>> well, i don't think the prince deserves any deference. this is a prince after all, after all, who was not elected, right? no poll put him in office. and this is a prince who had done what? nothing but sat on the thrown while there was strife and violence in verona over generations. with respect, your honor, the prince has not earned any deference before this court. >> certain amount of common sense here, can't we just take judicial notice that the parents of romeo and july yet, messed up, bigley? >> we may, your honor. only up to the 30% bilgely mess-up. >> i don't think 30% is bigley. maybe you can give us a brief on that. [laughter] >> what's your email address?

[laughter] so, your honors, as we, as i listen to my exceptional opposing counsel argue that this is a case that involves some sort of a spiritual counseling privilege, please, i asked you to go through those papers and when opposing counsel gets back up to this podium, ask her to give you examples where crooked friar lawrence actually rendered spiritual counseling. you'll find none, and the reason you'll find none is because there was no spiritual counseling going on. there was an attempt by friar lawrence instead to many about the hero of this saga, sacrifice young people, all so he could be the person who would have solved problems and war of verona. >> don't you have another significant problem? that shakes spear himself assigned the blame of deaths of

romeo and july yet to the parents did, and juliette. it requires on snippets of the text and over looks shakespeare's purpose. after king versus burwell, don't we have to look at the purpose of the text? or do you think the d.c. circuit got it right in how king versus burwell. >> you're more of an originalist than i am, your honor, but in reality, here with respect to shakespeare, shakespeare's judgment that the parents are liable would be correct, if you believe that shakespeare wrote the bible. [laughter] >> i'm not exactly sure what that means.

it has a certain air of authority to it. i like it. [laughter] >> what about the liability of the capulets and the montagues for perpetuating this feud? do you even know what the feud was about? >> you know, with respect, i believe the feud was more about their servants who sought to, you know, really want to climb up to society and the way they thought that they could get up to the level of the capulets and month at -- montagues was war wh each other in the streets. >> there was a rumor it dated back to a very bitter election. there were allegations of the use of private carrier pigeons and, mantua interfered with the election and got rid of the whole idea of the elections and brought in the prince. is that true? >> there is authority in the record for that proposition, particularly if you put a little

dab of that poison in your pipe. [laughter]. >> has that been decriminalized, counselor? [laughter] >> in the district of columbia and the state of verona, it is perfectly legal to grow up to three mature plants of the poison in one's house. yes, your honor. >> what about the parents' reaction when they discover their children are dead? in about 60 seconds, they say oh, well, the kids are dead but we'll build nice statues of them? >> your honor, i must say i was the second lawyer they contacted. [laughter] a gentleman named abby lau was the prior. and i have since advised them

otherwise. [laughter] your honors, i think that the record is clear. what the record demonstrates is that crooked friar lawrence, only after his own desire to be the hero of verona put the lives of two young people at great risk. he knew that they were dangerous, knew that they were suicidal, came up with a half-cocked plan, didn't fulfill it and allowed to tragedy to occur. >> but the plan was good except that friar john was low energy. [laughter] and he didn't make the delivery. >> indeed the friar -- >> how can we blame friar lawrence for that? >> i think that's a fair question and to be sure, father john should have been properly benched that night. the reality is, that of course

friar lawrence knew of friar john's fallibilities and that's why friar lawrence should have moved heaven and earth to have an alternative plan where simply he would have his guard wait at the family crypt so as to warn romeo that, wait a second, romeo -- >> wait a second. wasn't there an issue with the bridge, that the lane, it was, but it was closed? [laughter] there was something about manchua and, political favors? i don't know. >> i thought the problem that friar john lived on the red line? [laughter] >> indeed the safe track program persists, yes. >> that is not a matter for the office of attorney general.

[laughter] i see that my time is almost up. i hope it is. [laughter] and i ask you once again when my talented opposing counsel comes up here, if she can't belt out her favorite taylor swift line, ask her to at least point out specifically where in the record there is evidence of expert all counseling. there is none. that's why i ask the court to affirm the jury's finding that liability rests mostly 70%, red chips, [laughter], with friar lawrence. thank you. [applause]

>> mr. chief justice, i'll be brief since i understand there are drinks after this. [laughter] i have just two points and one sonnet that i would like to make in rebuttal. first, it's little hard to tell which way the court is leaning from the questions tonight and although i firmly believe that friar lawrence did nothing wrong in this case, and that the plaintiffs are entirely to blame and i hope that this court agrees with me when it retires to deliberate, it's my understanding that the audience also gets to cast a vote tonight and so i'm just going to put it out there, whatever happens, i hope i win the popular vote. [applause] it is a small consolation prize these days but i'll take it. i would also like to respond to opposing counsel's point that the fry ash is only one now

about all the elements of this plan. that shows there was total absence of parental supervision in this case. were "romeo & juliet" the original free range kids. where were the parents during romeo's sleepover. did they really think when romeo invited for netflix and chill the kids would pop in a movie and relax? i don't think so. [laughter] and then finally i just have a hodgepodge of concluding thoughts i really did put in sonnet form because i iambic pen tamter is persuasive. no one denies tragedy for sure. two lives too short before their final breath but money-grubbing parents aren't a cure, nor specious trumped up claims of wrongful-death. the friar tried to help at every turn with guidance drawn from sources high above, his selfless, blameless acts should

not be spurned for there is no stopping passionate young love. the plaintiffs are the cause of these events. their foolish, reckless rivalry, their feud, a textbook case of parents negligence resulted in their children's morbid mood. the jury's verdict swerved so far off course, respectfully, i ask that you reverse. [applause] >> all rise. the honorable court will now deliberate. please be seated. as the honorable bench

deliberates there is a jury, our audience will cast their vote by placing a red or blue token in the baskets that are circulating. the question is, assuming the parents and the friar each bear some legal responsibility for causing the suicides here, who should be held legally more liable for the deaths of "romeo & juliet"? friar lawrence, red, or the parents, blue. please vote red if you believe friar lawrence holds more liability. please vote blue, if the believe the parents, lord and lady montague, and lord and lady capulet hold more liability. again, only vote once. [laughter] remember it's red if you believe friar lawrence holds more liability, and blue if you believe that the parents do. >> now, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back abby lowell for

tonight's discussion. >> thank you. [applause] so very pleased to be part of this. one of the thing i'm also pleased about to have a small part in this entire theater company. and one of the things about it is, that there are so many people that do so much that we never get a chance to see. i'm going to now introduce two of those people. bring to the stage, two of my friends and two of the people that make this theater possible. first, director of opera and theater, including the play "romeo & juliet," alan paul. the other our drama expert, drew lichenberg. they are to come on to the stage. [applause] i know you know alan's work even if i don't know alan. alan has been responsible for a great deal of our successful plays on the stage it and especially our musicals, with

funny thing happened, "kiss me kate," man of le mans cha, what is a very, very musical oriented, "romeo & juliet." drew is somebody if you don't know you should. i don't know if you know what we do in order to be correct. he is our resident drama torg. what is a drama torg? he is knows the history, literature, background, period of what we do. i would kind of tell you he is the guy that makes sure we get it right. i thought it was a special night to be able not only introduce two people who really make this place happen, but also take the same theme of our play to see where we go with it while the judges deliberate. so i think my first question is obviously to you, alan. how do you and your colleagues take on the challenge of putting on and making fresh a play that everybody who sits in the audience knows and knows well and probably has seen in one way theater or film or in any other

way, multiple times? >> well, if it is the cause of a huge amount of my own jewish neurosees, what do you do with this play, every time i talked about, someone would say you should change the ending so they would live. >> we didn't have a mock trial. >> that's what i told them. the truth is, for shakespeare theater, for shakespeare director, when everyone in the audience knows how does the play end, what do you do? i realized that the journey of how you get to the end of the play was the interesting part and how to put in as many unexpected twists and turns as possible and the thing that i learned is that we know "romeo & juliet" as a tragedy but the characters in the play don't know they're in a tragedy. they're actually, besides the violent surroundings, in love when the play, as the play

begins and what we know about is when bad things begin to happen, they do everything they can to hang on to what they karn do to get themselves out out of a tere situation. it noise at tragedy until the end, which is interesting to me, at least freed me from my own straitjacket knew rose sees how to do it. at a certain point you give up everyone's expectations of what it is and no way i can please everyone and you do the version you're passionate about. >> tell us what the basic judicial role at the time in verona? did the prince have as much absolute power as portrayed in the play? >> i think the count -- >> recount. recount. we need a recount. >> i'm going to start a gofundme to investigate.

i want $7 million. >> back to the question. did the prince and the church have that role? in talking about that, given the nature of shakespeare's beliefs, was this play a little bit of a knock on the catholic church? >> what to me what is really interesting about the italian setting for shake spear's audience, everyone in the audience would have known this is a catholic country. this was a generation after henry viii, converted all of england forcibly to protestantism. shake spear's father we believe was a catholic. friar lawrence as soon as he appears he swears by holy st. francis, a catholic saint. he is most unambiguously catholic figure in the whole cannon. right away there is a fresan of danger, forbidden fruit. i suspect shakespeare's audience

would have looked at friar lawrence more skeptically as modern audiences, look at him as jovial father doweling. >> there wasn't a coincidence that shakespeare put in the nature of catholic church is part of what you're saying. what about the prince, did he have the ability to have that role? give the power of the two families, did they own him? >> well i think, you know, access politics is always existed to a certain extent and you know, shakespeare, there is a lot that he got wrong about italy. he once said you could go from pagua to milan by way of the ocean even though they're both land-locked cities. there actually were no princes in shakespeare's day. there were dukes. what he gets right and what is in sources of the play italy at the time was a bunch of independent city states with these warring families.

it's a, very ron that was -- verona was in a constant state of civil war with these families duking it out. >> no pun intended or princing it out. people know this because you have been here and read and studied, so many of shakespeare's plays take places outside of the united kingdom, outside of england and a number of in italy. he never went there. he never went to any of these places. how did he figure that out? >> there was a craze in shakespeare's life for stories set in italy. part of it is was forbidden fruit of catholic italy. machiavelli was a big thing in shakespeare's day. there is characters like yago andville news machiavellian characters and shake spear's audience like us have stereotypes associated with italian people. we thought they were really passionate. they thought they had a lot of romantic ardor.

"romeo & juliet" are first two stereotypical passionate italians in the english tradition. >> alan, part of the argument you also heard what i'm going to ask you, what you said you had to figure out in terms of a fresh approach. there are so many parts of the play that are out of sync with us and our time. parental decisions on marriage. classical roles of women and men not very easy for us to understand given the time passage with that in mind what were the parts of play you felt were most relevant to our era and take from the play as we saw it and went back and thought? >> wealth truth is is that it is about teenagers who feel disconnected from everyone around them. it is shocking to look back at it to know that teenagers have felt that way for 400 years. juliet is living in a house where her father bosses her around, not out of meanness, out of his own narcissism, his own

belief what she should do. she's got a mother who has a hard time connecting with her. anyone who has been in a house with a teenager knows that even the best of parents can have a very difficult time connecting with their children. and, so, i think, what you're seeing is an extreme where something was going very wrong with juliet and she didn't have anyone to reach out to. so i think that theme is unfortunately going on now. i think there's also the theme of suicide. any teenager you talk to today, will probably have known someone who suicide has affected and there is an interesting thing about the play, the character ben volio, his friend is romeo, who i think he suspects may be suicidal. there is a big question if you have a friend who you believe is suicidal, is it your responsibility to say something?

and a lot of the experts i spoke to said, i asked them if you had, if someone informed on a suicidal friend, would they lose the trust of them? most studies show that no, the suicidal friend was greatful to have the help. so this was something that shakespeare was on to 400 years ago and unfortunately we're still dealing with it. >> those are themes that you did emphasize in a number of ways. as you say them that way, they really do become apa parent, they last beyond what might be other anachronisms. on that -- i want to go back to the issue of the portrayal of the power of the church, whether it was in this case, mocking or not, the catholic church and also of the non-elected leader. accurate depictions of what was the era at the time, both? >> well, as i said before shakespeare played very fast and loose especially when it comes to italy but what's interesting, and i think what connects to

alan's observation about the internal suicidal nature of these teens is that the church in the play, friar lawrence, himself, formed a quasi-legal world of its own. it is a place where romeo goes when he wants advice. where both of them actually end up going to get married to seek a sort of legal or extra legal sanctuary. so it's a privileged place in the world of the play, away from the outside world of the prince and of the warring families. and there is a lot of responsibility vested in friar lawrence and i think shakespeare is kind of asking the audience is this an okay thing? should a priest, should somebody have essentially the power of playing god with these teenage lives? because he is a very fallible human being. not an accident that he discovers juliet alive in the tomb and he has a very human reaction. he freaks out and he runs away. after telling her, come with me, i will bring to you safety. in the original version, juliet

goes back and she dies in a convent. there is actually catholic stuff all throughout the history of this play. >> were you going to say anything? >> no. >> so, alan back to you, we're obviously on the verge of a new administration and it us underscores i think that washington is such a unique place in the country in various way, politics, journalism, of course. you have grown up here. you perfected your art here. you have now presented so many different works on the stages in this place. is there anything unique from the point of view of being a director that's unique about the audiences in washington that you have to keep in mind, that you have to play to or you have to avoid playing to that you wouldn't do if you were in some other place? >> i think, look at this room. we're so attuned to everything that it's impossible to produce a play, direct a play and not know who the audience is going to be. i was thinking about that also because i was thinking about

what you might see on our stages and how the election and politics is going to affect us, and one thing i was surprised to really think about, was that shakespeare is in many ways, one of the most political and the least political writers. when shakespeare was writing he took all these characters in history plays that the audience would have known and revived, richard the 2, richard iii. he instead of talking about their politics he stripped it away he talked about the human decisions behind who where they were. the audience he wrote for was acutely aware of their history. sometimes he used them as a way to discuss current events but a lot of time he wanted to move beyond politics and he wanted to, he wanted to see what the basic human decisions that go on for macbeth are. so it is going to be an interesting time to do

shakespeare on the stage and to see how political or human it actually is. >> not that this was a plug for all of you in the place but before you go, you can reserve the ability to come back and watch the performance the theater will put on in the spring of macbeth itself. it was a plug. so with that, let me tell and ask you all to do what i did when i started. between the people behind the stage and the thanks i give to the people on the mock trial committee that helped write scenarios turn out here, you have two of the people that make this theater very special. and they make it special every week in the way they do it. and they did again tonight. so thank you very much. >> thank thank you for having m. [applause] >> all rise.

please be seated. >> well, we have deliberated and we have reached a decision but before i announce that, let me just say, and i think i do speak for everybody when i say this, that the attorneys tonight were absolutely tremendous. [applause] and from now on i'm going to expect all the briefs from the solicitor general's office to be in iambic pentamter. [laughter] for our judgment, fortunately we have a divided decision, unfortunately, but fortunately,

fortunately, a majority of this court believes in the evolving standards of parenting that mark the progress of a maturing society. [laughter] even though two of us are back in the 16th century. so the judgment is reversed. [applause] and since this is a principality it really doesn't matter how the people voted. [laughter] i would like to read my dissent from the bench. [laughter] i must confess that i struggled with the jurisdictional issue but my colleagues persuaded me it was not a political question. and to me, it came down to issue of religious liberty claim

versus parental rights, and, in my view, and i judge wilkins, justice wilkins joins me in this, religious liberty claims can't defeat parental rights. [applause] thank you, parents. [laughter] >> so please welcome back abby lowell to read the jury's decision. [laughter] >> i wanted to again thank all of the participants and the judges, that give so much of their time. you know of course, what you see them do on stage is because they too have read briefses takentime, study the law of verona and we owe them a special thanks once again.

[applause] my favorite part having been in a few trials myself i would hope i could bring with me to the courtroom, they say i can't move it. if you remember, thank you, all the members of the jury for participating in this tonight around i know you're just dying to know how it turns out. so let's not hesitate any longer. remember the red chips for those that thought friar lawrence was more liable and the blue-chips are those that think that the families were. [cheering] [applause] with that verdict and friar lawrence being saved. i heard he was being asked being appointed to the head of the food and drug administration.

[laughter] [applause] >> all rise. this concludes the presentation of the bar association's mock trial. we hope you enjoyed the evening, enjoy the rest of your evening and there will be baskets at the doors for you to place your unused tokens or save them until next year. [applause] [inaudible conversations].

[inaudible conversations]. . .

you found out what it are divisions had created 2 million fake accounts, had fired thousands of employees for improper behavior and had cheated thousands of your own customers and you didn't even want to consider firing her ahead of her retirement? >> thursday at 8 p.m. eastern would remember some of the political figures that passed away in 2016 including former first lady nancy reagan and supreme court justice antonin scalia. friday night at eight, are in memoriam program continues with shimon perez, mohammed ali and john glenn. this week in prime time on

c-span. >> join us on tuesday for live coverage of the opening day of the new congress. watch the official swearing-in at the new and reelected members of the house and senate, and the election of the speaker of the house. our all-day live coverage of the dates and events from capitol hill begins at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span, and c-span.org or listen to it on the free c-span radio app. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable-television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> next, portions from the fourth annual women ruled summit in washington, d.c. speakers included kellyanne conway, minnesota democratic senator amy