As much as I love Shakespeare, I do not believe I could be classified as a traditionalist. I think Baz Luhrman's updated version is borderline brilliant and when I saw an all Black cast of Othello (with the exception of Othello) I thought it was incredible, so I am perfectly fine with changes being made to the plays. Hell, I even find some of the modern movies playing on the Shakespeare plays (The Lion King/Hamlet, Ten things I hate about you/Taming of the shrew) are usually pretty good. It is a testament to William Shakespeare's brilliant writing and incredible storytelling. So, when I heard that the festival's Romeo and Juliet would be modernized a bit I was not inherently worried about it.
If you don't know the basic premise of this play, you really have no business living so I won't be spending time rehashing the plot of this show and inside dive right in to reviewing it. First off I have to talk about the modernization of this show. The elder characters appear in traditional period costumes and the young appear in modern day clothing. There are modern day cops and a few modern day props like caution tape, a body bag and things like that. The young kids first appear in catholic private school uniforms and throughout are usually shown in pretty basic outfits- the guys in jeans and a button down white shirt and Juliet in a little dress and some kick ass boots. Those things did not bother me whatsoever. What bothered me was how the director seemed to be totally oblivious to how an audience would react or what would get the focus of the audience. For example, At the party where Romeo and Juliet meet, the elders start the party by dancing the way people would have back then before a d.j takes over and the young people start freak dancing and whatnot. It is a genuinely funny moment but there is a problem with it. In order to give focus to Romeo and Juliet meeting, everyone on stage fades back and starts dancing in slow motion, but when you see people in the background freak dancing in slow motion during a Shakespeare play, that is where your focus goes and that is what draws out laughter. However, we should be watching Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time. We should be watching the sparks fly and the love blossom, not giggling because some girl is copying a dance from a rap video. Also, right after Romeo has killed Tybalt, the cops pull out the yellow caution tape and of course the crowd is going to laugh at that, but the moment is a truly serious moment in this show and it flies over the heads of the crowd because they are giggling.
That is not to say that I did not enjoy the show because I did, but it was in spite of a clueless director. First of all, the words are still Shakespeare words so they are hilarious, intelligent and heart breaking. Most people consider this to be the most tragic love story ever and in some ways it is. You have to remember that in this time period people married who they were told to and so it would make sense that young people who have a connection could rush into believing it is love and Romeo is about the most romantic guy ever. Our Romeo(John Tufts) played up a cockiness in the character I had not seen much of but it worked because it made his transition to love sick emo boy so much more tragic. Our Juliet(Christine Albright), a gorgeous vision, also played Juliet a little differently than I had seen before. She seemed to play up Juliet's sense of entitlement factor. She was very good, if a bit whiny but the two had tremendous chemistry, which could be due to the fact that they hang out off stage as well (yes we saw them the next day on the street).
In all of the years my family has been going to this festival there is one actor whom we just love in everything. His name is Don Donohue and I have seen him in 4 or 5 different shows and he is always fantastic. I have seen him in Shakespeare and non Shakespeare and he can just do it all and in this show he was playing Mercutio and I was very excited about it because I love this character and I was not disappointed. Clearly this man was the high point of the show for me playing Mercutio the way I always have envisioned him to be played. He was physically loose and confident but never overly cocky. People always have a tendency to play him like a typical hot head, but that was not found here. He was not afraid to fight, but he wasn't really looking for a fight and it made watching this part so much better for me. I was sad he doesn't get the kind of death I would have liked to see, but when he was on stage it raised the level of the show.
My other complaints come from the Nurse (Demetra Pittman). Some people just do not understand the language or rhythm of a Shakespeare play. It is not really their fault, but it exists and this woman had no clue what she was doing on that stage. her words did not make any sense because she did not know how to recite them. She was not funny, which the nurse can be and she was not interesting, which the nurse can be. She was just this obnoxious woman who could barely spit out the words and was so obviously acting it was painful. However, Lord Capulet (Jonathan Haugen) was the exact opposite. That part is very difficult because he gets a huge outburst that seems to come from nowhere but this man committed fully to his breakdown and turned it into a masterpiece of over the top acting. I think the first row may have got spit on, but man was it ever effective.
The story is still wonderful even if the director did not have a clue on how to direct a Shakespearean tragedy and preferred to play up non-existent comic moments instead. I was fairly disappointed by the show in the end but the acting from the youngsters made the show worthwhile for me. I am worried that the director is going to be taking over as the artistic director for the entire festival starting next year, but I will be withholding judgement on it until next years.
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