Romeo + Juliet Broadway Reviews

It’s a little slick, though, at least for seen-that adults. The play’s twisty language, expressive of twisty thoughts, is largely untangled but, in the process, flattened. (Gold’s edit brings the running time, not counting intermission, to “the two hours’ traffic of the stage” Shakespeare mentions, but some of that traffic is stop-and-go.) I smiled a lot but never came close to crying.

It’s early in the run, and it’s possible that Gold spent less time with his actors on the second act of the play. But it’s also possible that it takes real genius to pull off the death scene in “Romeo and Juliet.” The audience has to believe that these are not just two children caught up in the early days of first love, but that they’re fated by the Gods and the universe to have met and to have died. What we have here instead is a fun night out and a hangover.

It turns out that, aside from some harmless frippery on the edges of the production, this is a remarkably strong Romeo + Juliet, performed in the round at Circle in the Square. Once the cast is done performing capital-C-coolness, as they do in the mosh pit-like rave scene that opens the show, they launch into an appealingly well-acted, sleek adaptation of the well-known tale. Working with the dramaturgs Michael Sexton and Ayanna Thompson, and whittling it into a potent two-hours-ten plus intermission, Gold has focused the play’s energy onto its social dynamics.

Once the audience has become accustomed to the playful, cool mood that extends into the chic lobby, they await the, er, tragedy to unfold. On that end, “Romeo + Juliet” is a let-down. During the dark final moments in the crypt, or wherever the heck they are, the play peters out. The best bits are specks in the rearview; the sadness, less powerful than the booming tunes from two hours earlier. Then, in the last seconds, we are told as ever, “For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” And, as the lights fade at Circle in the Square, we’re not so sure about that.

But Shakespeare’s greatest plays are timeless, lending themselves to endless relocations both historical and contemporary. As wild as it is, aggressively courting the TikTok generation, Gold’s revival fully commits to its concept and sustains it surprisingly well. Traditionalists might shudder at the way some of the verse is delivered, but if you’re willing to take it on its own terms, this R+J is an infectious emotional rollercoaster. And a hot shirtless Apothecary is something you don’t find at CVS.

Without tinkering with Shakespeare’s language, this R+J is full of youthful energy – and, what’s more, contemporary youthful energy. Watch how the young cast gestures, maneuvers, gets their bodies from one place to another – courtesy of movement direction and choreography by Sonya Tayeh – and the effect is entirely fresh. A small example: Connor doesn’t climb up a balcony or a trellis – he jumps up and grabs ahold Juliet’s bed platform hovering high over the stage, then does a very impressive chin-up to get his lips where they need to be. It’s a charming touch, and R+J is full of them.

It's abundantly clear that Shakespeare purists expecting this production to be a timeless tale filled with medieval garb and banquets will find themselves up in arms over Romeo + Juliet's bold choices. But the visceral, teary-eyed reactions that several young audience members in the crowd had during the play is proof enough of how influential it will be for a brand new generation of theatergoers. To quote Perez: "Thank you, William Shakespeare!" Mic drop. Grade: B+

Marketing is marketing, and it might not have mattered then, but it certainly does now — now being the moment in which you can see all this high-key, try-hard set dressing clogging up Circle in the Square. At the center of the whole trendy, clubby, stuffed-animals-and-inflatable-furniture jumble is, as Cordelia once said to her dad, nothing. One could be forgiven for walking away from this show’s two (and a half) hours’ traffic thinking that maybe Romeo and Juliet is kind of mid after all. Such is the enervating effect of so aggressively clickbaity and uncurious a production.

Apart from the Zoomer window dressing, Gold engages in thoughtful and amusing double casting. Sola Fadiran plays both Capulet and Lady Capulet, neatly distinguishing between the husband and wife without overdoing gender stereotypes. Capulet’s angry rant at the recalcitrant Juliet is especially terrifying. The absolutely electric Tommy Dorfman is a study in opposites as Juliet’s daffy, chatty Nurse and ice-cold killer Tybalt. Gían Pérez takes on various clown roles, such as the douchey Paris and feckless Peter. The always-stunning Gabby Beans plays both Mercutio and Friar Lawrence with tremendous panache and humor. Both characters think they know what’s best for Romeo yet end up hastening his self-destruction. Beans’s Mercutio is an acid-tongued stoner perpetually in shades, whereas the friar is a gentle, optimistic soul. She juggles a third character speaking Chorus lines and delivering exasperated edicts from the Duke of Verona. The first act ends as a bloody brawl on a bed of flowers an alarming juxtaposition of brutality and romance. Choreographer Sonya Tayeh gives the movement her signature mix of muscularity and abandon. In the final scene (a bit rushed perhaps so Gold could keep the action more or less at two hours) Romeo and Juliet die splayed over each other. Their cruciform positioning mirrors the giant LED crucifix against the wall behind the DJ. A pretty tableau, but nothing terribly deep. You could say the same of other directorial flourishes, but they’re easily overlooked, since the language is well-delivered and the ensemble appealing. It’s the least boring or cringe Shakespeare I’ve seen in a long time.

Though to be fair, intense over-acting may be for the sake of the crowd, for whom Shakespeare remains a dense and daunting endeavor (“I have soooo much algebra tonight,” said a girl behind me as I exited.) In this play about teens, now vigorously pitched for teens, to Borg or not to Borg may be a pertinent question – and if it serves as an entry to a genuinely refreshing take on the oft-spoken balcony scene, then so be it.

As the lovers hurtle toward their deaths, the already-speedy production gains more steam. (Romeo’s fatal encounter with Paris goes by the wayside.) As a result the ending feels abrupt—wait, the party’s over, and everyone’s dead? This may in part be why Mr. Gold doesn’t succeed in making us feel the awe and horror, the sense of waste, we should at the mischances that result in the deaths of the lovers. But at least it lets Mr. Connor and Ms. Zegler out at a reasonable hour to greet the hundreds of fans waiting for them after the performance. While this isn’t the most subtle or emotionally resonant “Romeo and Juliet,” it is unquestionably bringing enthusiastic younger audiences to the theater, in itself a worthy and impressive achievement.

And because Gold lets the initial energy and urgency go limp, he sacrifices the chance to say something 2024-ish about youth culture or the inevitable violence of tribalism, the sort of low-hanging but potent fruit that he seems to be intent on plucking early on. But just as first love can blind the smitten to obvious flaws, maybe the imperfections of first Shakespeares can be similarly ignored. Let’s hope the Bard’s new bevy of devotees are won over and here to stay.

Gold’s in-the-round staging makes dynamic use of side areas, including the aisles and the catwalk above the stage, but the environment it creates is hermetic. There’s little sense of a Verona beyond this Instagrammable party space—or of its rules. And ultimately, I think, that undermines the play; it accentuates the role of simple bad luck in Romeo and Juliet’s fate, and detracts from the larger point. This production seems intent on appealing to TikTok audiences who don’t know much about the play going in, which is a laudable goal, and I think it will succeed. But those newcomers may be surprised to find that what they thought was a tragedy about young people crushed by societal constraints is actually the sad tale of two nice kids who died from a lack of adult supervision.

Alas, while the two leads are sincere, the show itself is (a) altogether too much of too much; (b) a bit of an ill-focused mess; and (c) less than engrossing.

Audiences of different ages crave different spins on love and death, and judging by the stage-door stampede following the buzzy Broadway revamp of “Romeo and Juliet,” young people are in a frenzy for tragedy. Or at least eager to catch a glimpse of stars Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler on the street. The enthusiasm is thrilling, even when it almost flattens you under foot. Unfortunately, the production’s rave-like, nihilistic drive does little to make up for its lack of clarity or a pulse.

Gold tries his damnedest to bring something new to William Shakespeare’s 1597 play, which has been performed in just about every space imaginable for the last four centuries, including three dozen times on Broadway. He occasionally achieves something gorgeous and intimate, thanks in large part to the white-hot chemistry of his two leads. But for slightly older audiences, now nursing heartburn more often than heartbreak, you’ll likely just feel exhausted.

My inner English teacher is grateful to director Sam Gold for drawing a younger crowd (voluntarily, eagerly!) to Shakespeare. The production sometimes thrilled my outer theatergoer too. Sometimes, but not always. There are downsides to Gold’s presenting the tale of star-crossed lovers primarily through youthful energy. This is most apparent after intermission, when the action turns to quiet gravity and grief, and Shakespeare’s words matter more. The cast’s relative lack of stage experience is manifest in a flattening of both the poetry and the tragedy.

Oh, yes, this revival does everything it can to reflect the unfortunate time in which not only the Montagues and the Capulets but we, too, are living. Somehow, it’s sad to be confronted with the news that the violence so stealthily and widely afflicting our society today has infiltrated so far as to include treating Shakespeare’s text violently.

The most gorgeous moments in this Romeo + Juliet are the simplest, when all the noise falls away and it’s just Connor and Zegler: their first meeting, when they spontaneously proclaim their love in a shared 14-line sonnet; the famous Act 2 balcony scene, a positively swoon-worthy moment that no future production should ever attempt to re-create; their too-brief moment of post-wedded bliss. As Gertrude wisely commented in Hamlet: “More matter with less art.”

Gold's production — featuring buzzy young stars Kit Connor (Heartstopper) and Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) in the title roles — aims to do the same for Generation Z, and in much the same way. The result is hit-and-miss. Sporty streetwear, gender-swapped casting, and original pop songs by of-the-moment music producer Jack Antonoff are all on display in the Circle in the Square Theatre, transformed into something like the site of an unsupervised high school house party. Stuffed animals are strewn about, characters take swigs from a gallon jug of an unidentified blood-red drink, and everyone's running and raging and singing with abandon. The whole thing is undeniably entertaining, but the additions of Antonoff's songs, Sonya Tayeh's choreography, and intermittent modern slang don't serve the play as much as they feel like empty spectacle, inserted out of fear its target audience — short-form TikTok devotees, per the stereotypes of us Gen Z-ers — won't otherwise stay engaged for 2.5 hours.

Gold and his creative team produce some stunning tableaux on the cramped stage, and the fight scenes are athletic enough that you fear that players may end up in the laps of first-row theatergoers. But Gold himself is in his mid-40s and a lot of his attempts to youthify the material fall flat. In the hurried second act, just after the Capulets learn of the “death” of Juliet (though she is merely in a chemically induced sleep state), Gold shoehorns in a forgettable comic-relief scene featuring a Capulet servant (Gían Pérez, who also plays Samson and Paris) and a musician. The moment serves no purpose except to play a snippet of Antonoff’s fun. song “We Are Young,” to allow Pérez to drop an F-bomb, and to give music director/DJ Sarah Goldstone a single line that resonates more deeply than I suspect Gold intended: “Tis not an appropriate time to play music.” (Unless you know Shakespeare’s script, it’s not even clear that Pérez is playing a servant and not Paris, the deep-pocketed Juliet suitor whom the Capulets prefer.)

Gold has shrunk most of the Circle’s playing space into a literal black circle in the center of the floor, designed by the ever-clever collective dots, and which contains one extraordinary surprise – almost as big as the care he brings into creating a truly effective “Romeo & Juliet.”