REVIEW: Elegant, eloquent ROMEO AND JULIET offers message of hope amid strife
By Ruth Ross
No matter how many times I see (or read) William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, the plot and performances reveal something new to me.
Never mind that I taught the play to ninth graders for years or wrote my first review of a production in 1997; as I age, I tend to notice words, phrases, even actions I may not have been aware of previously. This time out, it was how much responsibility the adults’ words and actions bear for the tragedy that befalls their children.
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s glittering, elegant, eloquent production of Romeo and Juliet transports the audience to the palazzos and plazas of sweltering Verona to experience the heat of feuding families coupled with the heat of young love, all of which lead to crushing loss.
Everyone from grandad to teenager knows—or should know—the story of these “star-cross’d lovers.” Romeo Montagu, rejected in love by the fair Rosaline, crashes a party and falls hard for the not-yet-fourteen-year-old Juliet Capulet, daughter of his father’s sworn enemy. The two children pledge eternal love and, with the aid of a sympathetic friar, marry, only to have Romeo banished to Mantua for his role in a street brawl in which his best friend Mercutio and Juliet’s cousin Tybalt are killed. To thwart her father’s directive to wed Count Paris, grieving Juliet swallows a potion to give her the appearance of death and is buried in the family tomb. Unaware of the scheme, Romeo kills himself upon discovering her cold corpse, and Juliet, finding her dead husband sprawled on the floor of the tomb, uses his dagger to commit suicide. Thus, is meted out to the Montagu and Capulet families the harshest punishment of all: the loss of their children—all because of a feud, the cause of which is never explained and most probably has been forgotten.
Artistic Director Emerita Bonnie Monte helms the production with a sure hand so that the two hours announced by the Prologue flies by with nary a dead spot.
The two lovers, portrayed by Isaac Hickox-Young and Billie Wyatt (above), exude youthful energy and innocence. Hickox-Young’s adorable Romeo is quite funny at first, mooning over the fair Rosaline (who doesn’t return his attraction). This Romeo is ripe for romance. Hickox-Young conveys Romeo’s mood swings quite eloquently, from wondrous love in the balcony scene to wild dejection upon learning of his exile to the tender goodbyes spoken by the newly married pair as he gets ready to depart. Wyatt positively glows as Juliet, projecting a youthful wonder at the power of love and the awakening sexuality of a smitten teenager. The chemistry between the two is palpable, especially in the wedding scene where the friar must physically keep them apart so he can conduct the ceremony!
As the imaginative Mercutio, Quintin McCulston’s (above, with Hickox-Young) recitation of the Queen Mab speech leaves the audience breathless with its manic display of images drawn from the fairy world. Here truly is “a man who loves to hear himself talk,” a fantasist who gets carried away with his own imagination. His cry, “A plague on both your houses,” after his fatal stabbing resonates in the theater as he repeats it five times. His nemesis, Tybalt, is played by Triever Sherwood as a menacing thug with a thin skin, seeking insult everywhere and prepared to act accordingly. As peacemaker Benvolio (his name even means “good wishes”) Christopher Atchison works tirelessly, yet fruitlessly, to control Mercutio and Romeo, both of whom throw caution to the winds in the confrontation with the contentious, ready-to-rumble Tybalt. Anthony Marble is fine as the short-fused Capulet—he’s especially irate when Juliet refuses to marry Count Paris as he’s directed—and his grief at finding her dead on her wedding day is heartbreaking. Raphael Nash Thompson is superb as a sober, if somewhat naïve, Friar Lawrence, who attempts to rein in teenage hormones but who concocts a hare-brained scheme to bring them together with the hope of ending the familial feud. Dino Curia plays the rather thankless role of Count Paris very well.
As for the female roles, Celeste Ciulla’s broadly comic Nurse is remarkable. Her longest speech, wherein she recalls Juliet as a toddler, is hilarious as she babbles on and on about a wife’s “falling backward” (having sex), much to the consternation of Lady Capulet, a prim Aurea Tomeski, who repeatedly tries to shut her up. Later, thrilled at being a co-conspirator in this prohibited union, she gleefully carries messages between the two lovers, further complicating the plot.
Director Monte and set designer Sarah Beth Hall have placed the tragic tale, squarely in Renaissance Italy, with a majestic balcony hovering high above the action; a set of arches, suggesting a monastic cloister, other rooms and hallways in the Capulet house; and alleys radiating from the Veronese plaza where the initial servants’ brawl and the murders of Mercutio and Tybalt occur. Andrew Hungerford’s lighting calls to mind the glare of the Mediterranean summer sun, a more subdued light for the Franciscan monastery; and a bluish light for the night scenes. Monte’s lush, jewel-toned costumes convey the wealth of these two warring families, and Rod Kinter is to be commended for his graceful fight choreography, especially exciting in the fight between the teenagers that kills Tybalt and Mercutio.
In her director’s notes, Bonnie Monte says that this particular mounting of the play “has been deeply influenced…by what is happening all around us now in America.” Lest she leave the audience with a feeling of hopelessness, she notes that the “play is bursting at the seams with both love and hate, but it is the ample doses of love in Romeo and Juliet that make our hearts pound or swell the most….Ultimately, despite the senseless loss and terrible sorrow…it is love that triumphs.”
This production of Romeo and Juliet is a worthy testament to the fine work done by the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. If you have a teenager, bring him or her to see this production. Our young people, just like those in the play, will be most affected by the schisms wracking our country today. Perhaps, the hope and love will help them (and us adults) to get through it. It’s not for nothing that Shakespeare is considered to be a universal playwright.
Romeo and Juliet will be performed at the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre on the campus of Drew University, 36 Madison Ave., Madison, through October 5, 2025. For information and tickets, call the box office at 973.408.5600 or visit www.ShakespeareNJ.org online.
Photos by Avery Brunkus.