Review: ROMEO & JULIET at Orlando Shakes

It’s one thing for a theatre company to slap an “old faithful” crowd-pleaser in their season lineup — Grease, Rocky Horror, or The Sound of Music — but it’s another to reach hundreds of years further back and re-illuminate one of most iconic pieces of theatre ever written. It’s yet another to do it quite so successfully as the Orlando Shakes have to kick off the new year.

The towering set, beautifully lit as the audience enters, is completely visible once the house is open. This is largely due to the thrust nature of the stage, making a curtain difficult, but it’s a treat to the eye as the players are awaited. Philip Lupo’s lighting design splashes reds, blues, and purples across the empty stage, illuminating the legendary house feud before a word is even uttered.

And then we’re off. With the opening monologue, Cynthia Beckert’s booming voice and definitively commanding presence as Prince Escalus - sustained throughout - immediately provide the play a deep sense of gravitas. It makes one sit forward at attention and simultaneously relax; in mere moments, we see that this is a production that can more than handle itself, and that the audience is in good hands.

There’s a great pleasure in being able to write that there is not a weak performance in the lot. A diverse and deeply committed cohort of actors are on display here, peopling a Verona that does manage to feel both old and new (more on that later). Jullien Aponte is a terrifyingly aggressive Tybalt whose vision seems to be obscured by the red that adorns his family; Blake Croft is an earnest and yet aloof Paris who impressively manages to come off as an incongruously entitled misfit. Roberta Emerson’s Lady Capulet is clear-headed, no-nonsense mother who is not cowed by her husband, brought to doting life by John Gardiner. These characterizations create a fascinating dynamic in Act II, when Lord Capulet flies into a rage over Juliet’s refusal to marry — while Gardiner’s flip away from paternal is truly scary, Emerson gives Lady Capulet’s hesitation to engage with the behavior a delicious and icy subtext. Brent Jordan (Benvolio) and Walter Kmiec (Mercutio) could practically be staggering on stage to “The Boys Are Back in Town” every time they enter, so great is their camaraderie and air of indiscretion. Kmiec in particular brings a life and sense of truth to Mercutio; it’s a pain to lose him in the first act.

Where this production truly shines, however, is in the performances of Nadia Ra’Shaun (Juliet), Brendan O’Leary (Romeo), Suzanne O’Donnell (Nurse), and Jim Helsinger (Friar Laurence). This quartet, in their individual performances and in their on-stage relationships, are among the strongest things that the production offers. O’Donnell and Helsinger (a real-life couple) bring  such maternal and paternal warmth to their roles that it’s no wonder to the audience when the teenagers turn to them rather than than their parents. O’Donnell lends Nurse a delightful midwestern dialect, a bawdy sense of humor, and a haggard wisdom in the ways of the world; Helsinger’s Laurence has that same haggard wisdom, paired with a twinkle in his eye to rival Saint Nick. Seeing these two brought low at the death of their charges is deeply painful.

If Romeo and Juliet do not work in their roles, then Romeo & Juliet does not work on the whole. Much to the audience’s absolute delight, Ra’Shaun and O’Leary work very, very well. In an earlier interview, the pair spoke with BroadwayWorld about the focus on youth that this production features, and that much is abundantly clear. The naïveté, single-mindedness, and unabashed hope that both of them portray reminds the audience again and again that these are teenagers; Ra’Shaun’s vocal choice for Juliet is also pitched upward, creating a convincing illusion of further adolescence. Her Juliet is one that has been complacent to live life as it’s been presented to her thus far, but now, seeing in Romeo that there is more to the world, will not rest until she has experienced it. (One of the funniest moments in the show is nested within the balcony scene, when her patience  with interruptions in the famous conversation finally breaks.) O’Leary begins the show as a detached playboy, many times appearing to be lost within his own head, lonely despite constantly being surrounded by his comrades, and searching for a purpose that has thus far eluded him. He finds that purpose in Juliet, and O’Leary nurtures an almost visible growth of Romeo’s faith in life as he messily clambers out of that dejected state to stand on the pedestal upon which he’s placed his love. These choices - Ra’Shaun's strain against her status quo and O’Leary’s relentless focus - are incredible groundwork on which to dash it all when things start to go wrong.

Director Monica Long Tamborello has done an incredible job with the duality of tone within the play, leading her troupe to find all of the heart, humor, and charm in Act I, and all of the pain, anguish, and depth of sorrow in Act II. In a fascinating aesthetic choice, Tamborello and her creative team have crafted a world that smashes together the old with the new, mixing 1590s with 2020s to varying degrees of success. Characters move and intone with modern sensibilities. Starkly modern pieces of chrome furniture adorn Bert Scott’s otherwise traditional stone-work set, and a large neon-bright cross creates a beautiful image in the fateful tomb in which the play culminates. Where the anachronistic choices occasionally miss, however, are in Dr. L. Nairobi N. Moss’ costumes. To be sure, there is brilliance here: Tybalt’s leather-strap-laden death outfit, Lady Capulet’s Act I pant suit, and nearly everything the title characters wear, for example. There’s also a wonderfully emphatic adherence to visual family ties using reds, blues, and purples. But these time periods’ sartorial aesthetics are to one another as the Capulets are to the Montagues; they tend to clash.

Sound Designer Britt Sandusky makes an interesting aural decision throughout the production to generally eschew underscoring. Music plays a minimal part in scenes of dance or transition, but broadly, there is little to speak of. In combat scenes, the soundtrack is of swords clanging and physical grunts, lending a sense of realism — but one does occasionally wish for the rush and swells that a musical score can provide. Only once does the blended time period touch the production’s musicality; a Bridgerton-esque cover of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” drops in after Romeo and Juliet first meet.

There’s never really a bad time to revisit this particular piece of Shakespeare, and to an American audience, Romeo & Juliet strikes an unsuspecting nerve as it becomes the two hours’ traffic of the stage in 2026. Like all timeless art does, this play reaches across time and holds a sobering mirror to society as it stands, issuing a warning against the dangers of festering hatred and feuding houses (represented at the Shakes, profoundly, by the colors red and blue). The innocence - and innocents - lost to the crossfire of these needless conflicts are terrifyingly easy to graft onto our world. But it is not all doom; Romeo & Juliet offers a “glooming peace” that is reached as the houses reconcile over the loss of their children. In turn, this proposes a grim hope that so too may we see reconciliation one day, after so much harrowing loss, if life, love, and the pursuit of happiness are given their due.

ROMEO AND JULIET runs through February 8. For tickets, visit the link below or call the box office at (407) 447-1700.