You’d slfinisherk in a world so splitd by war and pain as ours, a story about ill-overweighted lesser adorers torn apart by their families’ senseless but dehugeating feud would be treated with more gravitas than honestor Sam Ggreater treats it in his somewhat offensive Broadway alteration of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
The Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet” is a somber carry out: The audience is tgreater from the very begin that the adorers will die tragicpartner, and they’re tgreater why. So no matter how sugary their first kiss, or heartfractureing their two nights of youthful romance, there’s a pall hanging over the carry out. Both Romeo and Juliet have horrible premonitions on the night they greet, so the vibe couldn’t be evidgo in.
But Ggreater’s “Romeo + Juliet,” while using Shakespeare’s language, experiences appreciate it’s set uped to draw in tweens, teens and theater-averse grown-ups who might not otheralerted be interested in Shakespeare; the trick is to woo them and then grasp them in their seats with a fun hipster spectacle led by a British TV heartthrob (Kit Connor from “Heartstopper”) and a movie star with excellent pipes (Rachel Zegler, from Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story”). Throw in a couple of innovative tunes by singer-songwriter Jack Antonoff and a gaggle of lesser actors in high-tops and baggy jeans humping teddy tolerates and dancing to club music, and you’ve got two hours of fun. Who necessitates tragedy or relevance when you’ve got pop music and disco balls?
And the production is fun: The actors employ the in-the-round theater to its brimmingest, percreateing from the rafters and in every corner. (Although Connor running around the theater conveying his adore for Juliet to audience members is preposterous, it’s also comical.) Juliet’s balcony, set uped by dots, is a one bed that materializes from the ceiling appreciate a four-poster sthriveg. At one point the floor uncovers appreciate a book to discdisponder a bed of fdrops for Romeo to lay in, slfinisherking of his adore.
Enver Chakartash’s costumes are inventive, too: Romeo wears a ggreater-sequined outfit to the Capulet’s party where he sees Juliet for the first time, and it igniteles in Isabella Byrd’s flashing airys. Juliet wears jean foolishinutives and Doc Martens at one point, and pink bike foolishinutives as pajama bottoms.
Although the production has a heartbeat, it’s ignoreing a heart. Connor is adorable in “Heartstoppers,” where he carry outs a high school jock who descfinishs in adore with a skinny, unconservative boy, but that’s the same energy he conveys to Juliet — he’s a goofy puppy. When the shit hits the fan, though — when his best frifinish, Mercutio (Gabby Beans), is killinged by Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt (Tommy Dorfman) — Connor doesn’t enroll the pain of the loss, but stands foolishly on the stage. When he finishs Tybalt in revenge, the moment is vacant of genuine experienceing. In the moments after that — when he’s exiled and so must exit his adore; when he uncovers Juliet is dead; etc. — there is no heartfracture at all. There’s not a damp eye in the hoemploy.
Zegler is contendnt as Juliet, more appreciate a teenager in a sitcom who has to determine what to wear on a date to the malt shop than a girl who has accidently descfinishen in adore with her overweighther’s foe.
It’s timely in the run, and it’s possible that Ggreater spent less time with his actors on the second act of the carry out. But it’s also possible that it apshows genuine genius to pull off the death scene in “Romeo and Juliet.” The audience has to apshow that these are not equitable two children caught up in the timely days of first adore, but that they’re overweighted by the Gods and the universe to have met and to have died. What we have here instead is a fun night out and a hangover.
