But Wherefore?

In Maria Hepps Shakespearian adaptation acting will clarify everything, right?

by Mark Cofta

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Jun 12, 2007

Shakespeare's plays are blank slates, character-rich but deliciously vague about circumstances. Applying a concept has become so common that The Onion ran the headline "Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play in Time, Place Shakespeare Intended."

Approaches abound: the contemporary political statement, the historical analogy, the pop culture reference � almost anything can work, as long as it's specific enough to discern.

Without reading the program (and we shouldn't have to), what Vagabond Acting Troupe's Romeo and Juliet at Second Stage at the Adrienne attempts is anyone's guess. Graffiti covers the walls ("the end is coming," and over "coming" is painted "here"), and two chain link panels frame the concrete-gray stage.

Characters will define this bleak urban landscape, we imagine, but their costumes do not (a touch of hip-hop, a dab of '80s glam, a hint of Mad Max), and neither do their few props (the feuding families carry empty old-fashioned lanterns and arm themselves with screwdrivers, rubber mallets and bread knives). Director Marcia Hepps adds a visual preamble to the prologue, a busy, actor-ish scene of comings and goings with feigned urgency that explains nothing.

Acting will clarify everything, though, right? Hepps uses eight actors for all of the roles and distinguishes each character, though the crowd scenes are unusually small. Conrad Lawson makes an intriguing Romeo, a dynamic yet brooding man-boy with a wild shock of hair, but Marie Howey's pretty Juliet pushes for laughs with volume suitable for a much larger house. The two fail to connect convincingly, even when required: Romeo utters his famous "thus with a kiss ... " without kissing Juliet.

Aileen McCulloch's overblown Nurse escaped from a vaudeville sketch, while Jamie McKittrick's Capulet (an amalgam of Juliet's mother and father) lurches like Norma Desmond ready for her close-up, and Marc Cairns makes Benvolio an aging hippie. Joanne Cunningham plays two men as women, sort of: a girlishly pugnacious Tybalt, and a bland Friar Lawrence. More believable are Andrew Gorell's energetic Mercutio and Adam Shellenberger's distinct trio of characters.

The program divulges the intended setting: "July, 30 A.C. (After the Conflagration)," an intriguing concept clue. But neither this idea, nor an emotionally involving staging of Romeo and Juliet, actually takes the stage.

Romeo and Juliet

Through June 24, Vagabond Acting Troupe, Second Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-563-4330, www.vagabondactingtroupe.org.

 

Things That Matter To People Who Matter
Name that Toon
Comic Relief
Skin Deep
Perish the Thought
Lost in Space
The Big Picture
Helen Oyeyemi
Audacia Ray
Die Actor Die