The Bard Reloaded and Remixed with Gothic Twist

From “two star-crossed lovers” all the way through “for never was a tale of such woe…” most everyone is familiar with the story of Juliet and her sweet Romeo. In the American Repertory Theater’s production of the Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet,” director Gadi Roll confronts the challenge of staging a version of the play which is new, or at least interesting.

The production, whose run lasts through March 25, goes out of its way to make the play fresh, with results that, while occasionally misguided, are never anything but stunning.

Needing very little introduction, “Romeo and Juliet” is Shakespeare’s classic tale of two lovers from warring families. Separated by their families’ bitterness, they go through a series of bizarrely complex trials and tribulations to be with one another, and the play ends with both of their deaths. Put that way, such a plot does not seem like much of a love story for the ages, and many aspects of the production highlight this cynical undercurrent.

As the titled character Romeo, Mickey Solis is excellent as he sighs and mopes over his early rejection by Rosalind and then falls in love with Juliet (Annika Boras). But once his character encounters adversity, Solis’s performance seems to be set on “shout” and begins to get tiresome.

Boras fares better. Although she is much older than the 14 year-old Juliet for which the original production calls, Boras reminds the audience of Juliet’s youth by bringing out the petulant-teen aspect in her rebellion against her parents.

This characterization fits well with the general image of the production. Tending towards adolescent melodramatics with lines like, “Be not so long to speak. I long to die,” Juliet could as easily be seen giving such angst ridden speeches wearing black eyeliner and hanging out at the local mall in modern times.

The secondary characters are played to the hilt as well. Lady Capulet (Elizabeth Hess) is now an over-sexed, half-crazed shrieking harpy, Friar Laurence (Thomas Derrah) is physically menacing and the prince (John Campion) has an inexplicable (and annoying) stutter. As for Mercutio—well it is rather impossible to overplay Mercutio—Che Ayende delivers the rants and innuendos in great style.

The costumes continue the Gothic flamboyance of the characterizations. They look like a head-on collision between “The Matrix” and 80’s-era Madonna, with a bit of gothic teen thrown in. Men are shirtless whenever possible, and Molly Ward who, in a bit of cross-gender casting plays Benvolio, wears a white sports bra and a full-torso tattoo.

Another of the better departures from the original script is having the characters fight with knives and fists. Choreographed by Rod Kinter, this change gives the fight scenes a kinetic brutality that sword fights lack.

There is less immediate logic behind the dance sequence at the Capulets’ party, which is easily the strangest sequence in the play. It is hard to tell whether the director is to be commended or condemned for having the characters “vogue” to classical music and line-dance to Usher. However, choreographed by Doug Elkins, the sequence is undeniably and surrealistically entertaining, if a trifle sacrilegious.

The set is just about the only thing that is stark and minimal about the production; yet even in its industrial appearance, it is as striking and visually stunning in its own way as the more over-the-top aspects of the production. This very modern minimalism sets the tone for the play’s bold updates.

Created by Riccardo Hernandez, the set transforms the Loeb Mainstage into an isthmus between a divided audience, some of whom must cross the stage to reach their seats. The stage itself is a shallow sandpit surrounded by a metal mesh walkway. A catwalk runs high above one end of the stage which the actors reach by climbing ladders that are occasionally propped against it.

Individual scenes are set, in part, by limited furniture, but mostly by an elaborate system of lights that descend from the ceiling—globe lights in two sizes, chandeliers, and normal overhead lighting—in various configurations and heights.

This system, designed by D. M. Wood, immediately sets the place, from a grand ballroom to a garden to a monk’s cell. Apart from the retractable lights, intense strobes frequently frame the walkways or backlight characters, to great visual effect.

In contrast to the other technical aspects, the sound design by David Remedios tends to detract from the play. From sudden bursts of industrial music between scenes that are just as suddenly cut off when the lights go back up to unnecessary “tender” music underscoring the falling-in-love scenes, the music distracts from, rather than enhances, the play. This is a minor quibble, though.

In updating and tweaking “Romeo and Juliet” mercilessly, Roll has created the most purely entertaining and one of the most visually interesting productions that I have seen in quite some time. Weird, affecting, and beautiful in equal measure, this “Romeo and Juliet” does justice to the classic by making the audience temporarily forget its pedigree.

—Staff writer Elisabeth J. Bloomberg can be reached at bloomber@fas.harvard.edu.