A rose by another title would scent as candy, which I suppose should embrace the one embroidered on the black mesh singlet worn by Package Connor. Sam Gold‘s Gen Z Romeo + Juliet revival may be chaotic and undisciplined, however it’s additionally breathless and swoony, offended and violent, tender and attractive AF. Able to attest to that was the mob of younger girls and queer youngsters in my viewers who set free a squeal of pleasure when Connor took a flying leap right into a pull-up to kiss co-star Rachel Zegler on a mattress suspended above the stage. This isn’t your grandmother’s balcony scene, however it’s disarming.
The image that greets theatergoers upon coming into is a bunch of uncommonly youthful actors clad in neon colours and slouchy denim and Good day Kitty backpacks, draped throughout one another with what looks as if pansexual abandon. The overturned purchasing cart spilling out plush pastel teddy bears, the neo-club-kid garb and the thumping techno music of the rave intro — to not point out the blunt tagline, “The Youth Are Fucked” — portend a gimmicky tackle a romantic tragedy that dates again 4 centuries and counting.
However Shakespeare’s biggest performs are timeless, lending themselves to countless relocations each historic and modern. As wild as it’s, aggressively courting the TikTok technology, Gold’s revival totally commits to its idea and sustains it surprisingly nicely. Traditionalists would possibly shudder on the manner among the verse is delivered, however in case you’re keen to take it by itself phrases, this R+J is an infectious emotional rollercoaster. And a sizzling shirtless Apothecary is one thing you don’t discover at CVS.
Other than Connor’s Romeo and Zegler’s Juliet, there’s little sense of Gold coaxing his ensemble — virtually all of them double-cast, typically in cross-gender roles — to burrow deep into their characters. However perhaps a part of the purpose is that these actors are pouring themselves into the components to mirror at this time’s actuality, by which younger adults are confronted with a world pushed by older generations towards irreconcilable divisions and borderline destruction — a world by which simply holding onto hope is a problem.
The manufacturing seems to be much less fascinated with a trustworthy retelling of Shakespeare than one which connects the story, with metatheatrical immediacy, to audiences across the protagonists’ age. That side is borne out by the ocean of teenage and early-20s faces within the packed homes throughout previews, to not point out the crowds speeding the stage door as quickly because the actors take their bows. Something that will get youngsters to the theater is a win, and in the event that they’re experiencing a considerably filtered model of Shakespeare’s wit and poetry, a minimum of it’s their model.
Components like social media and actuality TV have given many from the manufacturing’s goal technology a want for protagonism — to be a part of what’s occurring somewhat than passive observers. Staging R+J within the spherical (in the identical house the place Gold directed his trenchant revival of An Enemy of the Individuals earlier this yr) attracts the viewers in near the motion, much more so when the actors steadily fan out into the aisles.
Units by the design collective Dots are minimal, although the imaginative concept for Juliet’s balcony and bed room works fantastically; a reveal when the stage flooring opens as much as uncover a subject of flowers is enchanting; and lighting designer Isabella Byrd’s dramatic crucifix — intersecting rows of huge headlamps — brings acceptable solemnity to the Capulet household crypt.
The very first thing that registers because the leads, each of them barely into their 20s, emerge from the huddle is their youth. Zegler, the invention of Steven Spielberg’s West Aspect Story remake, by which she performed a unique incarnation of Juliet, is so petite she simply passes for an adolescent. Connor, who sprang to fame because the rugby-playing hunk that surprises a homosexual classmate by reciprocating his emotions on Netflix’s Heartstopper, is a strapping lad. However the operative phrase is “lad.”
The final Broadway revival of Romeo and Juliet was a quick flop by which the principals, Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad, had been 36 and 27, respectively. The distinction in age this time round makes the characters appear immediately extra weak, feeding our anxiousness over what we all know shall be their tragic fates.
One important enhancement to this manufacturing is authentic music performed by Sarah Goldstone on synth keyboard and written by Grammy magnet Jack Antonoff, who has formed hits for Taylor Swift, Lorde, St. Vincent, Lana Del Rey, Florence + the Machine, Sia, Carly Rae Jepsen and Kendrick Lamar, amongst many others.
Whether or not you suppose the songs add a lot will rely, like every part else right here, on the diploma to which you undergo the revival’s giddy spirit. They embrace “Whiplash,” a celebration anthem for the Capulets’ masked ball; “Finest Lie,” by which useless Depend Paris (Gían Pérez), who vapes and wears a pink “Reward from God” T-shirt, demonstrates his shallowness; and “Man of the Home,” a reasonably ballad gorgeously sung by Zegler, by which Juliet articulates her love for Romeo: “How does it really feel to be God? / I’m within the palm of your hand.” That is later reprised by Romeo, placing their emotional give up on equal footing.
Sola Fadiran performs each of Juliet’s mother and father, shifting with erratic readability between Capulet (a beneficiant host early on, then a fiery patriarch laying down the regulation as his daughter’s transgression turns into recognized) and Woman Capulet (a fluttery marriage ceremony planner, then a grief-stricken mom).
Whereas Verona’s feuding households are equal in the Aristocracy (“Two households, each alike in dignity”), the excision of Romeo’s mother and father reduces the Montagues to a handful of scrappy adolescents. Deliberately or not, that introduces a category ingredient to the 2 clans’ long-running mutual hatred, additional prompt by Connor’s use of an unfancy South London accent.
The manufacturing runs a reasonably customary two hours and 25 minutes with intermission. However from the second Romeo and his attractive bros Mercutio (Gabby Beans) and Benvolio (Taheen Modak) crash the Capulet bash, the motion unfolds at an accelerated tempo.
Romeo and Juliet solidify their love at first sight within the balcony scene after which, after their secret marriage, when her doting Nurse (Tommy Dorfman) arranges an assignation. Enraged by the Montague boys’ insolence in coming into the Capulet palazzo, Juliet’s puffed-up cousin Tybalt (additionally Dorfman) slays Mercutio in a battle and Romeo avenges his buddy by killing Tybalt. (The brawls are particularly bloody right here, although in an earlier skirmish, two male fighters from opposing sides amusingly pause for a heated lip-lock mid-fight.)
With Romeo banished from Verona, Juliet enlists the assistance of Friar Laurence (Beans once more). In a determined plan to thwart her mother and father’ obstructions and reunite along with her husband, she agrees to faux her personal demise with a sleeping potion, which all goes horribly flawed within the household tomb.
That well-known closing scene advantages from Byrd’s sepulchral lighting and Antonoff’s underscoring, although I can’t say I discovered it as affecting as this play may be. (For a extra shattering model that honors the lyrical great thing about the language, monitor down the excellent PBS filmed manufacturing with Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley.)
The standout of this forged is Connor, who invests Romeo with such innocence, impetuousness, romantic ecstasy and lacerating sorrow he breaks your coronary heart. Zegler doesn’t fairly match her co-star’s ardour, however she finds a poignant center floor between Juliet’s unrestrained ardor and her level-headedness. She’s not as heedless as intoxicated Romeo, and seemingly extra conscious of what they’re up in opposition to — which makes her unbroken resolve, even after the demise of Tybalt and her father’s risk to disown her, fairly shifting.
Elsewhere within the ensemble, the invaluable Beans is such a sparky delight as Mercutio that his early exit leaves an absence; Dorfman’s Nurse is humorous and fiercely protecting; and Modak brings such depth of feeling to Benvolio that you simply want he had extra to do. (The latter doubles because the shady Apothecary, who will get an enormous chortle when he slices open a large teddy to retrieve his stash of deadly poisons.)
With actors dashing not solely up and down the aisles however throughout industrial scaffolding overhead, confusion typically reigns as a lot as vitality, making you marvel how carefully first-timers will comply with the plot. However theatergoers with contemporary reminiscences of learning Romeo and Juliet in class, or of their very own first loves, ought to get eagerly caught up within the romantic rapture, the most cancers of festering hatred and the cruelty of predetermined destiny.
Venue: Circle within the Sq. Theatre, New York
Solid: Package Connor, Rachel Zegler, Gabby Beans, Daniel Bravo Hernández, Jasai Chase-Owens, Tommy Dorfman, Nihar Duvvuri, Sola Fadiran, Taheen Modak, Gían Pérez
Director: Sam Gold
Playwright: William Shakespeare
Set designer: Dots
Costume designer: Enver Chakartash
Lighting designer: Isabella Byrd
Sound designer: Cody Spencer
Music: Jack Antonoff
Motion and choreography: Sonya Tayeh
Introduced by Seaview