Dreams, the Children of Idle Brains: A Romeo & Juliet Review

Carmen Berkeley and Niall Cunningham in Romeo & Juliet. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

Hartford Stage’s production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Melia Bensussen, paints a vibrant picture of Shakespeare’s Verona-based, star-crossed lovers. This classic tale of a teenage love affair that runs hot and burns out quickly exemplifies the waste that haste makes. Romeo and Juliet embody the balance between comedy and tragedy while exploring the family affair that failed love often is.

The Montagues and Capulets are houses at odds—a feud that erupts in duels in the street at any given moment. The son of Lord Montague (Michael Samuel Kaplan) and the daughter of Lord (Gerardo Rodriguez) and Lady Capulet (Eva Kaminsky) meet, unaware of their diametric opposition, and fall in love. When they learn that they are moral enemies, Romeo Montague (Niall Cunningham) and Juliet Capulet (Carmen Berkeley) concoct a half-baked plan to deny their fathers and refuse their names with the help of Juliet’s Nurse (Annmarie Kelly) and Friar Laurence (Carman Lacivita).

Both Benvolio (Juan Arturo), cousin of Romeo, and Mercutio (Alejandra Escalante), friend of Romeo, find themselves in a scuffle with Tybalt (Brandon Burditt), the cousin of Juliet, in which Tybalt fatally wounds Mercutio. This triggers a rage in Romeo that leads to vengeance, and to Tybalt meeting the same end as Mercutio. Paris (Opa Adeyemo) makesmoves on Romeo’s lady while Romeo is banished for Tybalt’s death, adding nuanced layers to his and Juliet’s plans of ’til death do us part.’ As the story goes, after a series of more unfortunate events, both Romeo and Juliet meet their end in acts of desperation that force both houses to rethink their family feud.

Lacivita and Kelly give comedic life to the unsung heroes that are Friar Laurence and Juliet’s Nurse. The dynamic of the two creates a neutrality amid the feuding families, and both Lacivita and Kelly successfully carry the unfolding of each layer of drama on their proverbial backs. Escalante offered a playful portrayal of Mercutio and handled his personal shifts between comedy and tragedy rather well. Arturo owns Benvolio and is a crowd favorite, filling in the gap of the dynamic between Benvolio and Romeo as well as the trio of Benvolio, Romeo, and Mercutio. Burditt’s intensity makes for a perfect hot-headed Tybalt, and Adeyemo embodies a regal air that plays up Paris’s noble demeanor.

Cunningham bears the burden of a role laden with an emotional range that he doesn’t always meet, though when he does arrive, he lands the delivery well. Berkeley, by contrast, delivers Juliet with every muscle, from the truly childlike giddiness at her new love to her disobedient tantrum at her parents’ request to marry Paris. The brow-wrinkling grief and adolescent naiveté are palpable in her characterization of a young girl teetering between her youth and grown-up decisions. The ensemble worked beautifully together, their chemistry adding to the seamlessness of the production from start to finish.

This production matches the intensity of the Bard’s passionate story, plagued by the contrasts between life and death, with the Día de los Muertos tradition of Latin America. It weaves in Fabian Fidel Aguilar’s vibrant costume design and Día de los Muertos masks with the hauntingly beautiful choreography by Dale A. Merrill against the scenic backdrop of Christopher and Justin Swader’s stone wall fresco of Catholic symbolism that danced against the brilliant lighting design that turned ballroom lights into layers of entendres beginning with the stars in star-crossed and sharing the imagery of the medieval spiked-ball weapon (the morning star). The intentionality woven through each layer of design work brings to bear the absolute best that this iteration of Romeo & Juliet has to offer.

See it for yourself at Hartford Stage through May 18th. For tickets, visit https://www.hartfordstage.org/romeo-and-juliet.