For the Montagues and Capulets, displaying loyalty to one's family is a full-time job, one that often erupts in bouts of violence between the two groups. But these citizens of Verona certainly aren't the first (or the last) to place so high a premium on this kind of extreme loyalty. Director Amanda Dehnert has drawn inspiration from another culture that values a very visually demonstrative brand of family ties for her production: the Maori tribes of New Zealand and their visually arresting form of tattoo.

Called Moko, this form of specialized tattooing—usually found on the face and sometimes ornamenting the arms, thighs and other areas of the body—traditionally involved gouging the skin with specially designed chisels and implanting pigment in intricate and meaningful designs. Though the process has been modified in recent years (primarily to comply with modern health codes and to make the procedure less invasive and prone to serious infection), the spirit in which the marking are created remains very much the same as it did over two hundred years ago when the first Moko was observed by European explorers in the eighteenth century. This production of Romeo and Juliet features Kirituhi, which literally means "skin art" inspired by the tradition of Moko.

Sydney Parkinson accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand and published this image of a Maori chief in 1784.

Among the Maori tribes, Moko is traditionally symbolic of aristocracy, adulthood and achievement. A person's Moko is like a billboard advertising his or her "value" within the community. Moko can indicate family or tribe, place in the community, and also the knowledge or skills he or she has acquired. Moko is typically a work in progress, with many men and women working their entire lives to complete the designs. To have a true Moko, one must begin with his or her family's history and gain their approval before consulting with one of the handful of true Maori artists who still create these intricate patterns today. The process is often imitated by Westerners, perhaps most famously by British pop idol Robbie Williams, who caused quite a stir when he had Moko tattooed on his arm in 2000. Maori tribesmen maintain that what the singer wears is not truly Moko; one tribal elder accused Williams of stealing his family's design.

Moko symbolizes—and advertises—one's family ties and history, but also asserts one's individuality. Life achievements become part of the patterns on the body just as they become part of what defines a person in his or her society. This idea was inspirational to Amanda Dehnert and her production team in creating a way to visually distinguish the Montagues and Capulets with elements that contain both a sense of "ancientness" or distance from our own society, and the timelessness and resonance of fairy tale. The Montagues and Capulets of Shakespeare's play are fiercely loyal to their respective "tribes" and also proud of the traits that make them unique. In culling inspiration from a tradition that values and prominently displays both aspects of the self, the production team for Romeo and Juliet can honor both aspects of Shakespeare's characters, and also make the distinction between members of each household instantly clear for the audience.

-Contributed by the CST Education Department