REVIEW
The Bard’s well-known star-crossed lovers shine anew in Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s 24th Annual Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo and Juliet.
This version of R&J succeeds thanks to the choices made by director David Wilkerson. His setting and cast, as well as other elements, provide a top-notch professional take on this well-known tale.
Instead of fair Verona, it’s windy Chicago that provides the setting, and the time is 1894 instead of 1594. Erik Larson’s critically-acclaimed 2003 non-fiction book The Devil in the White City inspired Wilkerson to use the aftermath of the World’s Columbian Exposition (also known as the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair) as this production’s backdrop.
Political corruption and a serial killer named H.H. Holmes are parts of that 19th-century story too, and Wilkerson has noted the contrast between light and dark, and life and death, that thread through both Larson’s book and Shakespeare’s play. The director has the Montagues and Capulets in deadly hate over a rough-and-tumble Chicago political campaign, and from the start the clash is quite palpable.
The trick with any production of R&J is to keep the audience interested in the journey when almost all will know the show’s tragic destination. That ultimately falls to the actors, and the cast for this outing is up to the challenge.
Let’s start with some of the supporting players: Whether handling Shakespeare’s verse or prose, Nashville stage regulars Peter Vann (Mercutio), Chip Arnold (Capulet), Randall Lancaster (Montague) and Jeff Boyet (Friar Laurence) are comfortable in their character’s skins. That’s also true of Shannon L. Hoppe as Lady Capulet and Martha Wilkinson as the Nurse.
Ben van Diepen turns in a particularly hot-headed Tybalt, and Caleb Pritchett (Benvolio) and Tyler Ashley (Paris) keep us from overlooking two parts that often get lost in the shuffle of R&J productions. Tom Angland’s Prince Escalus is a commanding and tough, yet still regal, Chicago political leader.
Now to the two leads: Matthew Raich’s Romeo has all the passion and energy this teenage boy should possess. He has the athletic agility the famed balcony scene and other moments demand as well, and from the moment he sets eyes on Juliet at a Capulet party you believe his Romeo is truly, deeply, madly in love. Even for theatre, that’s a pretty neat feat considering how quickly it occurs.
Emily Landham’s Juliet does, to quote from the play, “teach the torches to burn bright.” She has the spunk and verve to be a teenage girl in any era, and she handles R&J’s comic-to-tragic transitions well. An actor playing Juliet earns her paycheck in the scene where the Nurse informs her that Romeo has been banished after killing Juliet’s cousin Tybalt. She has to go from giddy-girl-in-love to fatalistic-young-woman in a flash. Landham does so without losing our trust in her characterization.
All the production elements shine. That includes Jonathan Hammel’s impressive set of columns, stonework and iron gates; Anne L. Willingham’s tone-setting lights; June Kingsbury’s finely detailed costumes; Paul Carrol Binkley’s assured musical direction; Christopher Mohnani’s fine dance choreography; and Eric Pasto-Crosby’s stirring fight choreography.
Yes, the woe that awaits Juliet and Romeo is familiar to many. Happily the work of Wilkerson and his colleagues means that Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s entertaining Second City-styled R&J gives this tale a fresh take.
Romeo and Juliet runs through Sept. 18 at the Bandshell in Centennial Park (2600 West End Ave.) For more information please visit www.nashvilleshakes.org.
*Photos: Matthew Raich (Romeo) and Emily Landham (Juliet), photographed by Jeff Frazier.
