Kit Connor, Rachel Zegler (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Romeo + Juliet

By Deirdre Donovan

Thanks to Sam Gold, Generation Z now has an opportunity to get up close and personal with Romeo + Juliet, which recently opened at Circle in the Square. Although some may object to the production's conspicuous courting of a youthful audience, this 36^th Broadway revival of Shakespeare's early tragedy is bound to score with those under 30.

The traditional Prologue that frames Act 1 has been reimagined as a wild and wooly communal get-together with a gaggle of youths onstage: one cast-member rides a shopping cart; another stretches out on an inflatable lounge chair; several are jumping up and down to the beat of Jack Antonoff's turbo-charged music (movement and choreography by Sonya Tayeh). Indeed, it gives us a full-strength sampling of the anarchic energy and disorder that courses through this dark love story, in which two teens from warring families become smitten with each other.

The intensity of the opening scene ratchets up as the play proper begins. The audience sees Montague's servant Abraham (Daniel Bravo Hernández) and Capulet's servant Samson (Gían Pérez) "biting their thumbs" (known as the "fig of Spain" or "giving the fig") at each other, the Elizabethan's version of the rude hand gesture popular today. This episode, verbatim from Shakespeare, effectively grounds the production, illustrating how the feud between the Montagues and Capulets sadly extends to their servants.

The strength of Gold's production is in his spot-on casting of Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler as Romeo and Juliet, respectively. Best known for his role of Nick Nelson in the international hit "Heartstopper," the London-born Connor looks completely at home on stage and easily wraps his mouth around Shakespeare's iambic pentameters. Zegler, who hails from Hackensack, New Jersey, is equally poised. She rose to fame playing Maria Vasquez in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story and as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games. Most importantly, the two co-stars have excellent stage chemistry. After all, if spectators can't sense electricity sparking between Connor's Romeo and Zegler's Juliet, the play is never going to catch fire.

Tommy Dorfman, Kit Connor (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

The weakness of the production is in its doubling of roles. Tommy Dorfman, for example, plays both Tybalt and Nurse. While she's most effective at playing the hot-headed Tybalt, she's not entirely convincing as the longwinded Nurse, sashaying around the stage in a skin-tight new age outfit. Similarly, Gabby Beans is a terrific Mercutio but fails to embody the Friar, a clergyman given to platitudes who becomes an agent of malevolent fate in the play's world. Solar Fadiran's Capulet and Lady Capulet are almost indistinguishable, as Fadiran simply modulates his voice to indicate which of Juliet's parents he's inhabiting at any given moment.

Beyond the role doubling, some characters have been jettisoned from this production, most notably Montague and Lady Montague. Although Lady Montague speaks only one line in the play (She reportedly dies of heartbreak over Romeo's banishment), her widowed husband in the final scene vows to have a statue of Juliet raised in pure gold. Minor characters though they are, their presence in the play humanizes Romeo and deepens Shakespeare's tragedy.

Rachel Zegler, Kit Connor (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Gold has found an inventive way of staging the famous balcony scene without it seeming like a cliché. Instead of a physical balcony, he has a large bed suspended from the flies, with Juliet speaking her lyrical words as if they were newly-minted pillow talk ("O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?")  Romeo, of course, overhears her and soon enough steps out of the shadows, declaring his love for her. But good luck to this dude as he looks up at Zegler's Juliet perched approximately 12 feet over his head. Connor's multiple attempts to reach Juliet by leaping up and trying to catch hold of her bed frame are quite amusing at first. But when he finally succeeds and hoists himself up to share a tender moment with her, the audience audibly expresses their delight at his overcoming the physical barrier to their love.

Those theatergoers unencumbered by memories of other productions of Romeo and Juliet may more easily embrace this post-modern take on Shakespeare's tragedy. But those who fondly remember other iterations might have more difficulty connecting with the current version. Still, anybody plunking into a seat at Circle in the Square and watching Gold's deep dive into Shakespeare à la TikTok must give him credit for updating the play.

Ultimately, this Romeo + Juliet has its heart in the right place. It likely will attract younger folks who ordinarily wouldn't set foot into a Broadway theater. And that's something worth cheering.

Romeo + Juliet

At Circle in the Square, 235 W. 50^th. St., Midtown Manhattan

For more information, visit https://romeoandjulietnyc.com

Running time: 2 hours. 20 minutes with intermission

Through February 16, 2025