A Bard in the Hand

This isn't your granddaddy's preening, posing, parroted Shakespeare.

by Mark Cofta

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Published: Mar 18, 2008

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The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival celebrates strengths, but cannot hide weaknesses, with Romeo and Juliet, playing in repertory with the seldom-seen Pericles (opening March 28).

Repertory, rare in American theaters, has certainly become one of the company's strengths: One company of actors presents two plays on the same unit set (this year, Adam Riggar's sturdy wood and ersatz stone platform), much as Shakespeare produced his own plays at London's Globe Theatre 400 years ago.

PSF's relatively small space magnifies the thrust stage's intimacy: Everyone sits close, with the audience on three sides of the action (front-row patrons flinch during J. Alex Cordaro's creatively staged swordfights). This isn't your granddaddy's preening, posing, parroted Shakespeare: When David Raphaely's hyperactively teenage Romeo and Melissa Dunphy's equally adolescent Juliet fall in love, we see it and feel it, up-close and personal.

Less successful in director Carmen Kahn's production is an overall sense of time and place. In Shakespeare's day, this was often taken for granted: The time was now, the place was here, costumes were just clothes. Brian Strachan's design suggests a natty alternate present, in which brawling teenagers don striped suits, vests, capes and neckties — until we see the women, sentenced to bland Renaissance-faire leftovers (save for Christie Parker's slinky velvet gowns as lascivious Lady Capulet) and the servants' uninspired slave togs. Costumes provide context — as Strachan showed brilliantly in PSF's shag-alistic '60s Two Gentlemen of Verona a few years ago — but in this version of Verona, there is only confusion.

Vagueness occurs vocally, too: Raphaely's Romeo slips into a pseudo-Brit accent, obscuring his sincerity, while Dunphy's native Australian clashes with the otherwise American-sounding cast. Peter Pucci's feeble party dance (didn't we do that in gym class square dancing?) and Shannon Zura's perfunctory sound design offer no insights.

Fortunately, the play's soaring build (as Romeo and Juliet fall in love) and its crushing tragedy more than make up for the production's missed opportunities. Damon Bonetti shines as Romeo's bold friend Mercutio, and Andrew Gorell makes a refreshingly sympathetic Tybalt, even while seething with hatred for all things Montague. J.J. Van Name resists camping up Juliet's nurse — making Michael Cosenza's Peter earn his well-deserved laughs — and Buck Schirner's Friar Lawrence proves endearing.

The actors carry the day, but would it hurt to use the means that modern production provide to give the play a clear, relevant context?

Romeo and Juliet Through May 17, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, 2111 Sansom St., 215-496-8001, phillyshakespeare.org.

 

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