Asking undergraduate students to perform Shakespeare is risky business. For one thing, there's the complexity of the Bard's characters. A typical Shakespeare protagonist has 20 sides and a hundred colors, whereas most college students are still discovering themselves and don't yet have a particularly capacious personality to draw from.
And then there's the language: In a Shakespeare soliloquy, a character can go from quiet despair to mad optimism, from emotional authenticity to intellectual wordplay — changing, it would seem, every few lines, sometimes every few words. But young actors, for the most part, are so challenged by the quantity and unfamiliarity of Shakespeare's language, they tend to subsume all the changes under a single emotion, as if stuffing all the words into one convenient pigeonhole were solution enough to a difficult transit.
And finally, it's the rare student actor who can so master a Shakespeare role as to not merely play it but to interpret it, put his or her stamp on it. Yet this is precisely what we want when we witness Shakespeare: to find out — perhaps definitively? — who Shylock really is, or Richard III, or Lady Macbeth. Most Shakespeare characters are as mysterious as life itself, and we depend on the actors to guide us through the mystery. A thespian who merely speaks the words isn't doing the job.
It's for all these reasons — problems of character, speech and interpretation — that Romeo and Juliet, currently at the University of South Florida, is so far from successful. This beautifully designed production has a few strengths — which I'll mention in a moment — but for the most part is too simplistic, too monochrome to be enjoyable.
This is Shakespeare without subtlety, without surprise or insight into its subject. It features a Juliet with an exasperatingly small emotional range, a Romeo who seems even less dimensional than his lover, and only two actors — Reginald Kent Robinson Jr. as Mercutio, and Patrick Howsare as Paris — who seem truly on top of their parts.
Director Tamara Harvey has created a lovely visual feast, but she hasn't managed to break through the limitations of her actors, and the result is an evening that feels noisy and crude and a half hour too long.
I used to avoid university productions because I didn't think it right to criticize actors-in-training. Then came a series of partial successes, and better — Finer Noble Gases, The Odd Couple and Omnium Gatherum, all at USF — that convinced me I was wrong, and that I should alert readers to the gratifying work to be found in the groves of academe. After seeing R&J, though, I'm tempted to revert to my original hands-off approach.
Here, then, is the review — but it may be the last one I do of a university show, at least for a while. I don't take special pleasure in noting that young actors are unfledged, still developing.
A reminder of the plot for those who haven't read R&J since high school: The Capulets and Montagues are feuding families of Verona. But one day Romeo, a Montague, slips with friends into a party given by the Capulets, and there sees and falls in love with 13-year-old Juliet, who is just as smitten. They arrange to be secretly married, but the ceremony is barely over when Romeo's friend Mercutio is killed by the Capulet Tybalt, and Romeo slays Tybalt in response.
Banished from Verona, Romeo manages to spend one night with his love. But their chances of ever seeing each other again depend on a complicated plot involving a potion that will make Juliet seem to die. An essential heads-up never reaches Romeo, he rushes to Juliet's tomb not comprehending that she really lives, and the stage is set for an unnecessary double-suicide (too unnecessary: in Shakespeare's more mature works, tragedy flows from moral flaws, not bad timing). At the end, the Capulets and Montagues put an end to their feud: the enduring legacy of these "star-crossed lovers."
About the successes in the USF production: Most striking is William Brewer's stunning set that manages to be both the outside and inside of a Renaissance mansion, with balcony and sweeping staircase and faux-marble floor. Brewer is also responsible for the gorgeous Renaissance costumes that make this production a visual delight even when we're benefiting little from the playing.
And then there's Robinson Jr., as Mercutio, a part that can seem baffling when badly handled, but which here makes all the sense in the world. He plays Mercutio as an outsize intellectual, a joker so gifted in thought and language that he can't help but dominate all around him with his verbal powers.
Also fine is Howsare as the clueless Paris, a respectable man who thinks Juliet is to be his bride, and who has not one inkling of the drama going on under his nose. In some productions, Paris is cast as the anti-Romeo, an ugly and much too old Beast promised to Beauty. But Howsare's Paris is attractive and even dignified, comporting himself soberly under every condition, and reminding us that even a fabled amour can do harm to innocent bystanders.
Unfortunately, there's little else in this production to win our interest. Aisha Duran, who was so effective in the simpler Stop Kiss some weeks ago, gives Juliet approximately three emotions, and plays them and only them regardless of her character's situation (I especially tired of her shouting through tears).
As Romeo, Phillip Gulley is a pleasant, narrow oaf, a character so seemingly mindless, we don't for a minute believe him capable of the deep love he insists that he's experiencing.
Other characters aren't much better: Gi Sung as Juliet's nurse comes across loud and indiscriminate; Jonathan Cho as Benvolio seems frozen into a mask of comradely concern; Greg Geffrard as Prince Escalus seems capable of little beyond anger; and so on and so forth until we're left with a blur of language and gesture that's more Punch and Judy than William Shakespeare. The play is long as written; it feels longer under these trying circumstances.
And I think I'll stop here. No one thinks music students will master Brahms' Violin Concerto as sophomores, and I shouldn't have expected the equivalent from these performers-in-training. They still have a lot of learning to do, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of them — even the least of them — turns out in some years to be spectacularly talented.
That's what apprenticeship is all about: acquiring high standards, discovering one's defects, learning to overcome them, finding the professional in oneself. True talent will eventually rise to the surface. And it won't be held back by a troubled production — not even by this regrettable Romeo and Juliet.
Durang Durang. Chris Durang is America's satirist-in-chief, and though his work is sometimes spotty, he has no real competition. So theater lovers take note: Hat Trick Productions is offering a night of Durang one-acts at the Silver Meteor Gallery starting this Friday night. Included is the controversial Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, a bitter attack on religion that Durang seems to feel deeply. Directors include C. David Frankel, Jack Holloway and Anthony Casale. The show runs March 3-19. For tickets call 813-833-6368.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2006.