Theatre Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is bawdy brilliance

I’m a little bit of a Shakespeare fan girl. Give me iambic pentameter and period costumes and I’m practically sold before the opening monologue.

So you can imagine when I heard the Towson theatre department would be putting on “Romeo and Juliet” as its fall production, my heart did a little leap of excitement. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this show all summer, and I’m glad that the experience wasn’t a disappointment.

I should warn that this review will contain spoilers, but if you are in college and don’t yet know the basic plot to “Romeo and Juliet,” I think you need to take a step back and reexamine your life.

Acting is something that never seems to fall short in our theatre department, and “Romeo and Juliet” was no exception.

With extended monologues and soliloquies (Shakespeare lesson: monologues are when an actor speaks to one or more actors for an extended period of text, i.e. Mercutio’s famous Queen Mab monologue. Soliloquies are when the actor speaks to himself or herself, i.e. when Romeo is creeper stalking Juliet on the balcony and goes on and on about her beauty), I was afraid some of the play would drag.

I’ve seen high school productions of “Romeo and Juliet” where the actors seem to have no understanding of the context of the lines they are speaking, and I almost want to pull Romeo’s dagger from the stage and plunge it into my own heart.

But every actor seemed well trained in Shakespearean dialogue and the lines were voiced beautifully. 

The actions that went along with the dialogue were another story entirely. Whoever says Shakespeare wasn’t a dirty old man is a liar, and this play stands as proof.

Mercutio (played by senior Ryan Airey) and the Nurse (played by senior Siobhan Beckett) served as hysterically bawdy comic relief. And by “bawdy” I mean “Oh lord, how many inanimate objects on stage can Mercutio dry-hump?”

It was a nice comparison to the innocent love of Romeo and Juliet. Statutory age difference aside, the balcony scene was sweet and almost childish, and I found their passion real and touching. Senior Jon Kevin Lazarus and junior Lauren Baker played off each other’s strength’s and brought new life to roles that have been played thousands of times before. 

I had the opportunity to play Juliet in my high school production of the same play, and had a special appreciation for Baker’s performance. Her character’s strength as the play went on stretched well beyond Juliet’s 13 years, and I could sympathize completely with her loss of family, love and life.

The use of live music during the performance was something new in a Towson theatre performance that I had never seen before.

It seemed almost necessary in the party scene, and the dances (choreographed by assistant professor of dance Vincent Thomas) showed skillful craftsmanship, but did not distract from the actors’ dialogue.

While the musical pieces were a lovely addition I’d like to see used again, I didn’t like that the music often drowned out the words of the actors, such as in the opening fight scene.

The monumental death scene is one I will use as a lesson in theatre etiquette.

Romeo has just killed himself, his dead body flung across what he think to be the corpse his beloved wife. Juliet awakens to find him dead, and takes his dagger to end her own life.

The music is going, I’m on the edge of my seat, and… the girl behind me’s cell phone goes off.

Her ringtone? Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”

The ringtone was soft enough that I’m sure the actors couldn’t hear it from the stage, but loud enough to ruin the scene for me entirely.

Comments

1 comments

Carder Mills

Tue Nov 3 2009 09:32

I saw the play on opening night and it was fantastic. The balcony scene was the best I've seen since Olivia Hussey. The stage settings were stunning and the princess was a regal substitute for the prince. Bravo!

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