There are a lot of things wrong with Alley Cat Players' Romeo and Juliet (which I saw in a dress rehearsal), but I want to be contrary and start with what's right. For example, there's the Cat's new home, at the Isaac Center in Seminole Heights. This is a real theater space, with genuine proscenium, 275 seats and an ambience that's both professional and intimate. Then there's the acting of two of the play's five cast members, Emilia Sargent and Alisha Campton. Over the last few years, Sargent has been turning up more and more in important roles, and demonstrating a sizable talent; but as Mercutio and three other characters in Romeo she shows us an easy mastery of Shakespeare's poetry, and a charismatic stage presence that won't be ignored. Campton, meanwhile, has fewer credits on her resume, but her Juliet, while not dazzling, is solid and ingratiating. What Campton emphasizes is Juliet's innocence: this is an inexperienced young girl with no defenses against a handsome suitor, just optimism and an obstinately clear view of paradise. Finally, Ann Jones' period costumes are outstanding. Brian Smallheer's set may be minimal-to-nonexistent, but it doesn't matter when the costuming points us back to an imaginary Verona of billowing sleeves and fatal, all-or-nothing passions. Even the props in this production – including some nasty-looking daggers – help us into Shakespeare's world. Increasingly, it seems, those clever people at Alley Cat are recognizing what it takes to capture an audience's imagination.
Now for the other news.
The first and most grievous problem is adaptor Nina Shengold's reduction of the Romeo cast from more than 25 to just five. In her adaptation, five actors play several roles each: Mercutio also stands in for Old Capulet, the Friar and the Apothecary; the same performer who's Benvolio is also Lady Capulet and Old Montague; and so on and so forth quite beyond our ability to keep it all straight. Director Jo Averill-Snell employs the most minor of adjustments to tell us who's who, with the result that we spend crucial minutes striving to match the actor to the part, and hoping that someone will call someone else by name.
The problem is exacerbated by Shengold's and Averill-Snell's decisions to cast women in men's roles. Of course, this kind of cross-casting is familiar enough in the modern theater, and for that matter, in Shakespeare's time, all female roles were played by men. But one would suppose that the director would staunch our confusion with costume or hairstyle changes or anything that might convince us the gender-switch was well-advised. But Averill-Snell offers little such assistance, and we find ourselves baffled not only by a Paris who just moments ago was a Romeo, but by a female who claims to be old male Montague but who suspiciously resembles the identical Lady Capulet.
Is this playing with sex roles revealing, in a Caryl Churchill-like way? Not for a moment. I'd welcome an honestly feminist take on Shakespeare (not that it hasn't been done already). But the switches in this production reveal nothing about women or men, at least nothing that this director could have intended.
Which brings me to the next major problem, and that's acting in three of five cases. Maybe I should say two and a half; because Lynne Locher as the Nurse is tolerably interesting, even though her minutes as the Prince are less than convincing. But Matt Lunsford as Romeo offers little more than glamour; tall and blond, his approach to performance never dips beneath the skin, and only when he breaks into tears late in the play does he seem to have any interior life at all. Further, it's simply bad thinking to have him play Paris and Romeo both: what can it mean that Juliet falls madly for the latter but can't bear the thought of his clone? Still, Lunsford at least has some superficial success; Rebecca Goldman in three roles never persuades us even on the surface. Her Benvolio, Lady Capulet and Old Montague are all of a piece: inexact, out-of-focus, lacking in telling detail. Together these three actors play seven important roles – which means that even when we're not confused by multiplicity, we're troubled by pivotal performances. The result is, to put it mildly, disappointing.
And disappointing too is the cutting that Shengold's done of Shakespeare's original. Romeo would probably run well over two and a half hours if played in full; Shengold has reduced it to 75 minutes, meaning that some scenes go by in such a whirlwind, we don't really have the time to appreciate Shakespeare's language or investigate his characters. In fact, by paring away everything that's not central to the plot, Shengold just makes it all the harder to believe in Shakespeare's characters, at least those besides his two leads. Regrettable too is the loss of minor personages who might manage, by their presence, to convince us of a whole world. Cut away is the image of a whole city-full of Montagues opposing and ultimately united with the enemy Capulets; instead we're offered a few lonesome individuals on each side, stragglers, representative of no multitude.
Should we be grateful to have any Shakespeare at all in town, even this slimmed-down version? I don't think so: If Alley Cat can afford to pay only five actors, well, there are lots of fine plays out there that ask for no more. Off the top of my head, I can think of smaller but worthy plays by Pinter, Sam Shepard, Strindberg, Brecht, Beckett, John Guare. Five characters is actually a lot by contemporary standards; there are quite a few respectable dramas out there that are really nicely fleshed-out at that size.
What we're being offered here isn't really Romeo and Juliet; it's Rom. and Jul., abrdgd.
Let Shakespeare be Shakespeare.
And let Alley Cat find better uses for its precious resources.
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2005.