Broadway review: A Gen Z-flavored Romeo + Juliet (★★★)

Broadway Review by Adam Feldman

There is a comic-relief scene at the end of Act IV Romeo and Juliet That is almost always cut. Juliet's family has just discovered what they believe to be her dead body; As the musicians hired for her wedding prepare to leave, one of the maids asks them ironically for happiness: “Play me some Merry Dumps to comfort me.” The new Broadway production of Sam Gould's play not only keeps this scene but creates it. A kind of thesis statement momentarily broken, the servant demands to hear “We Are Young,” “If you don't play it,” he warns, 'fight you.

That last line is one of the show's rare departures from a 16th-century text, but it captures the spirit of Gould's aggressive Gen Z take on Shakespeare's family-feud tragedy. It's not just that “We're Young” is modern (as are the costumes, sets and attitudes of this production), or that this particular song choice—co-written by pop hitmaker Jack Antonoff, who also wrote three new songs—makes the production referential to the show. Symbol of Postmodernity: As in the 1996 Baz Luhrmann film, the title is styled as Romeo + JulietLike graffiti on a bathroom stall; Its Juliet, Rachel Zeigler, is best known for playing a character inspired by Steven Spielberg's Juliet. West Side Story; Its Romeo, Kit Connor, navigates a forbidden-love narrative in his Netflix series. Heartstopper. Not that the lyrics evoke both a sense of possibility and a sense of burning baked into the idea of ​​setting the world on fire and burning brighter than the sun. (“Take him and cut him into little stars,” says Juliet. “And he will make the face of heaven so beautiful / That all the earth will fall in love with the night / And worship not the proud sun.”)

Romeo + Juliet Photo: Courtesy Matthew Murphy

What makes “We're Young” so right is the most literal of all: it Romeo and Juliet The nightclub set, Too Much About Being Young, by Design Collective, includes inflatable furniture and a shopping cart full of teddy bears; Buyer Enver Chakartash puts the cast in track pants, crop tops and jeans. Lest you forget, in this version, Juliet is only 13; Zeigler, who is cute and petite, is believably adolescent in her excitement and impatience. (He has the romantic rebellion of someone who's been sheltered all his life.) Connor's Romeo has a sensitive-jock wholesomeness—with his short-cropped hair, peach-and-cream complexion, and muscular biceps in sleeveless tops, he looks a lot like a Russian gymnast. -This also makes him seem less than fully formed. (When he philosophizes that “love goes to love like schoolboys from their books / But love from love to heavy-looking school,” you're reminded that he's not far from school himself.)

In this version of Verona, in fact, there seem to be hardly any adults at all: just vaping, dancing, posing, Borg-toting, casually weird-liquid kids. In Gould's adaptation—Michael Sexton and Ayanna Thompson are credited as dramaturgs and text consultants—the warring Montague and Capulet families are almost all teenagers. Romeo's parents are left out of the play entirely, relegating some of their lines to minor characters; So, for the most part, there is Yuvraj, whose failure to stop his town's inter-family war earns him a share of the blame for the story's tragic outcome. Juliet's parents are played by the same actor, Sola Fadiran, and most of the other actors play multiple roles, with varying degrees of success. Gabby Binns, persuasive as the well-meaning Friar Lawrence, doubles less effectively as the strutting Mercutio; Gian Perez skilfully sketches Romeo's rival Paris as a beautiful man with a menacing bottom, but it's not always clear which of his three characters he is. Tomi Dorfman is enjoyable as the suave nurse—“I'm so upset that every part of me trembles,” she says as her Fanny admirer—but insufficiently menacing as Tybalt.

Romeo + Juliet Photo: Courtesy Matthew Murphy

If Romeo and Juliet stand out in this production, it is partly because of their surroundings which are often obscured. Aside from some besotted verses from star-crossed stars, what you can take away are Antonoff's lyrics—it's implied that Romeo will fall for Juliet when he sees her singing on stage, a pop idol—and a few moments of scenic beauty: a bed that hangs from the ceiling. floats, on which Connor does a pull-up; A floor that folds into a flower bed; A giant teddy bear in which the methoded-out apothecary hides his deadliest toxin.

Gould's in-the-round staging makes dynamic use of side areas, including aisles and catwalks above the stage, but the atmosphere it creates is hermetic. Verona has very few ideas outside of this Instagrammable party space—or its rules. And ultimately, I think, that undervalues ​​the play; This emphasizes the role of common misfortune in Romeo and Juliet's fate and detracts from the larger point. This production seems intent on appealing to TikTok viewers who don't know much about the drama going on, which is a laudable goal and I think it will succeed. But those newbies may be surprised to learn that what they thought was a tragedy about youth crushed by social constraints is actually a sad story of two beautiful children who died due to lack of adult supervision.

Romeo + Juliet. Circle in the Square Theater (Broadway) by William Shakespeare. Directed by Sam Gould. With Kit Connor, Rachel Zeigler, Gabby Binns, Tommy Dorfman, Sola Fadiran, Gian Perez. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. A pause.

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Romeo + Juliet Photo: Courtesy Matthew Murphy