The fall theater season is back up and running! I had high hopes for American Repertory Theater’s season opener Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”! Alas, this most tragic and romantic tale of young lovers caught in the crossfire of their feuding families left me wanting– but not for lack of trying. The set was beautiful and simple–sleek wooden slabs like monoliths lit by shifting shafts of light suggested a town square, a lover’s balcony, a friar’s lair, a family tomb, leaving us to focus on these accomplished and sometimes-mannered actors and their characters’ outsized passions. The opening scene quickly erupted in a showdown between the Montagues and Capulets– matriarchs, patriarchs, comrades in arms– all spilling out into the street until the Prince of Verona himself shows up to quell their rising tempers. It’s well paced, beautifully acted, and I was ready to be moved!
Photo: Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall
Then Romeo wanders in rumpled and wan, Harry Styles-like, heartsick over his flavor of the month Rosalind, unaware that the love of his short life is but a masked ball away. So far so good. Rudy Pankow is as callow as any testosterone-fueled teen whipsawed by the pretty girl of the moment, dizzy with unrequited love and aching for more. That night he will spot Juliet for the first time across a sea of revelers and I couldn’t wait to melt along with him at the sight of her. But the scene and the moment are so anticlimactic I almost missed the moment! The ball felt empty, the costumes (Emilio Sosa) dull but for Lady Capulet (Nicole Villamil) who alone looks chic and sexy, and there was no dancing to speak of. Where was Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s usually inspired choreography?
Juliet played by Emilia Suarez blends into a nondescript scrum, and with no help from a frumpy wardrobe, it was impossible to see whatever Romeo saw. The direction (Diane Paulus) left the duo stranded. Their meeting and subsequent balcony scene which seemed staged for acrobats, was distracting. The pair handled the linguistic acrobatics easily enough; but the language though saturated with sexual imagery and orgasmic yearning, yielded no fire or light. They seemed to be operating at different temperatures; I never sensed them in sync. Act II came closer– but I felt no real spark there.
Terrence Mann’s Friar Laurence commanded our attention and Adi Dixit’s Paris was much funnier with a fraction of the effort of Clay Singer’s overworked Mercutio. But Juliet’s nurse played by Sharon Catherine Brown seemed self-conscious and lacked maternal warmth toward the babe she had literally nursed. The coda was well-conceived but disintegrated into sentimentality because the staging was so deliberate and prolonged. I couldn’t help but recall the poignant, heart-shredding coda of ASP’s production of this tragedy staged last May. I never tire of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” no matter how often I see this tale of young love struggling to survive the bitterness of life. I always long for the embrace of a production– through whatever alchemy– makes my heart soar. This production kept me at arms length. American Repertory Theater through October 6.
