AVERY BRUNKUS
Billie Wyatt and Isaac Hickox-Young co-star as Juliet and Romeo, with Raphael Nash Thompson as Friar Laurence in the shadows behind them, in “Romeo and Juliet.”
If William Shakespeare were writing “Romeo and Juliet” today, and living in The United States, he would probably make Romeo the son of a Democratic senator, and Juliet the daughter of a Republican. And if he were living in some other country, he probably wouldn’t have a hard time creating a similar scenario. Maybe the world hasn’t really changed that much since he wrote the play that has come to be regarded of one of his greatest, in the 1590s.
But in Shakespeare’s play — set primarily in Verona, Italy — Romeo and Juliet are members of two long-feuding families, The Montagues and The Capulets. And that is not a predicament that is easily resolved. As Juliet puts it: “My only love sprung from my only hate!”
The feud has nothing to do with the lovestruck kids, of course. And they don’t even seem to care that much about it. But they — and everyone around them, for that matter — suffer the consequences. The feud turns a love story into a tragedy; Prince Escalus tells the family heads, in the final scene, that because of the feud, “heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.” He also observes that “all are punished.”
Yet there is also a glimmer of hope in that scene, that director Bonnie J. Monte expresses in a different way from which it usually has been expressed. It is more of a subtle touch than a huge surprise, but still, since it is the final scene, I won’t reveal it, except to relay Monte’s comments from her “Director’s Thoughts” essay (in the show’s program) that “I have taken some directorial liberties, both in the editing the text for this production, and in the enhancements I have created during transitions between scenes that strengthen and support my vision of this final gleam of hope. But I have also aimed those edits and enhancements at stressing the inability of those incapable of moving past their hatred to be part of that future.
“Whether it ends up being obvious or not, my direction for this particular mounting of the play has been deeply influenced, without question, or apology, by what is happening all around us now in America.”
AVERY BRUNKUS
From left, Godswill Utionkpan, Triever Sherwood, Christopher Atchison and Quentin McCuiston in “Romeo and Juliet.”
As you would expect from The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (and Monte, who became its artistic director emerita last year, after 33 years as artistic director), this is an effortlessly assured production that will keep you hanging on every twist of the story, no matter how familiar with it you may be. The actors never trip over Shakespeare’s intricate Elizabethan Era poetry. The fight scenes bristle with aggression, and the swordplay is deft.
Billie Wyatt — a real STNJ standout in recent years — plays Juliet, bringing a giddy girlishness to her early scenes, in which she first finds herself smitten, while also conveying the weight of the tragedy, later on. Wyatt’s real-life significant other Isaac Hickox-Young (who also has a stellar STNJ track record) makes a suitably dashing but sensitive Romeo.
The strength of this production also lies, though, in the vivid way many of the other characters come through: Romeo’s friend Mercutio (Quentin McCuiston), with his insistent irreverence and playful likability; Juliet’s intimidating cousin Tybalt (Triever Sherwood), with his eternal eagerness to fight; touchy patriarch Capulet (Anthony Marble), with his weariness that can turn, at any moment, into explosive anger; Juliet’s Nurse (Celeste Ciulla), with her good-natured, comically annoying loquaciousness; and Friar Laurence (Raphael Nash Thompson), with his benign helpfulness but also his obtuse blindness to the dangers of his plan to aid Romeo and Juliet.
AVERY BRUNKUS
Celeste Ciulla, left, and Billie Wyatt in “Romeo and Juliet.”
Few of Shakespeare’s plays have as many memorable characters, and maybe that’s not really by chance. It is as if he wants to show us that even though Romeo and Juliet — like any two young lovers — want to immerse themselves in their relationship and shut out the outside world, the world, with all of its busy-ness, and its strife, will find a way to interrupt.
More one-dimensional characters played by the 16-member cast include Romeo’s earnest, peace-making friend Benvolio (Christopher Atchison); authority figure and voice of reason, Prince Escalus (Edward Furs); and Juliet’s non-Romeo-like dud of a suitor, Paris (Dino Curia).
Sarah Beth Hall’s set is handsome but not particularly elaborate. Monte, who serves as costume designer as well as director, creates some winsome outfits for Juliet but sticks to straightforward designs — evocative of Shakespeare’s time, of course — for the most part, otherwise.
The set and costumes are consistent with the subtle, unshowy excellence that this production displays, as a whole. Monte isn’t looking to radically interpret this masterpiece. Or to modernize it in a heavy-handed way.
As she writes in her “Director’s Thoughts”: “I almost always seek to place Shakespeare’s tragedies in landscapes that are not time or place specific. I try to create a world where costumes, architecture, mood, music, and behavior defy time and location, and suggest that while this may indeed be a tale of the past, it is equally conceivable that it’s about the present or the future.”
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey will present “Romeo and Juliet” at The F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University in Madison, through Oct. 5. Visit shakespearenj.org.
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