"Romeo and Juliet' at the Arden (1st review)

Unless you married your first love, you probably remember the whole romance like a dream. Shakespeare litters his Romeo and Juliet with almost two-dozen references to dreams, and in the Arden's current production, Matt Pfeiffer's ambitious direction captures this sensibility completely.

Scenes in sequence occur simultaneously or overlap; consequences of actions precede their causes; and the plot appears as a series of images that, yes, form a narrative, but one submerged in the hazy miasma of memory.

Pfeiffer's direction bathes in the emotional intensity of each scene and hands us Shakespeare's drama like a jeweler displaying a string of pearls. For a moment, we hold each in our grasp, feel its texture and shape, and then pass quickly along a thin thread to the next.

Networking

That said, the production doesn't always succeed. Lighting designer Thom Weaver's harsh transitions jarred me from the play's reverie, and sound designer James Sugg's compositions, while often enhancing the action and staging, sometimes aren't used enough and don't always fit the mood.

But Pfeiffer's carefully chosen ensemble— an example of professional networking amongst friends if I've ever seen one— helps realize his vision. Although the Montague family has been largely edited out of this version, Scott Greer's terrifying Lord Capulet provides enough rancor for both families, one amply balanced by the tender benevolence of Anthony Lawton's Friar Laurence.

Humor dominates the first half, and persists throughout in the performances of Shawn Fagan's Mercutio, James Ijames as Benvolio and Suzanne O'Donnell's nurse. Costume designer Rosemarie McKelvey identifies each faction with the crested blazers of rival prep schools, and Dale Anthony Girard's fight choreography shows us schoolboys who've been raised to wield weapons. Soaring above this acrimony like a dove among crows is the childlike gentleness of Mahira Kakkar's Juliet.

Believable teenagers

Thanks to these performances, to Sean Lally's stage-commanding Tybalt, and to the young casting of the parents, for the first time in more than a half-dozen productions, I truly believed I was watching teenagers. The sexual comedy stayed within the boundaries of youthful ignorance; the jokes felt like genuine horseplay and ribbing, and all of these mid-20-somethings played like boys on a schoolyard.

It also helped that Arden set this play in the 1980s, lit the dance scene with a high school prom's Japanese lantern-effect, and gave the warring teens ninja weapons (the preferred tool of every junior high school boy) to fight with.

Only Evan Jonigkeit's Romeo took time to warm up. He starts argumentative and only becomes endearing at the magically rendered balcony scene. His repetitive deep sighs were so annoying that his suicide almost came as a relief.

Rebuking the Bard's intentions

To some extent Jonigkeit's bitchy performance serves Pfeiffer's larger point about the play. Ultimately Pfeiffer strips the young lovers' tragedy of any romance in order to cast a disapproving glare on the text itself. And rightly so. Whoever decided that Western culture should hold— let alone export— the notion of these two dreaming children as archetypal lovers?

Pfeiffer's production stands as a riposte to the flower of truce that grows from the scorched earth of these young lives, reminding us that in reality, the violent passions of youth strike with the force of a nightmare, not a dream.♦


To read a commentary by Alaina Mabaso, click here.