Review: Romeo and Juliet by Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs
The Romeo and Juliet playing this month in Zilker Park is a perfect evening of summer Shakespeare. A play we all know, streamlined, given an apt and intriguing twist, with a production outdoors. The Sheffield Theatre is in fact just a stage situated below a bowl-shaped meadow. We the spectators are invited to sprawl on our blankets or bring our own folding chairs. The stage is wide, the players are amplified, and the full moon scales the sky as the plot unfolds.
Ann Ciccolella's concept is a nifty one. She situates the familiar story of love and family rivalry in a "Pachuco" setting in the 1940's. For example, the Capulets' party in Act II becomes Julieta's quinceañera, the traditional Latin American coming-of-age party recognizing with a girl's 15th birthday her new status as a woman. In a patriarchical culture, however, a girl ripe for marriage does not necessarily have the freedom to choose a husband. From that enduring and inevitable conflict the story of the star-cross'd lovers evolves.
Important to note, however: the director and company are not making West Side Story without music. There's no facile separation between Anglo Texans and Spanish-speaking Tejanos. Though the publicity mentions "Central Texas," there's not a cowboy in sight. These are rival families of Mexican aristocrats, bristling at one another in the small world of a Mexican town.
That point is not immediately clear, particularly given the casting of the title roles. Gwen Kelso can be accepted as an uncommonly robust doncella, even next to her smaller-framed Capulet parents, but Collin Bjork as Romeo is as Scandinavian in appearance as in name. So much so that he surprises us when he stops the Capulets' confused messenger with a crisp "Quédate ya!"
Once we realize that Romeo is a güero and not an Anglo, the relations in this town become more complex and that much more interesting. We lose an easy explanation for the family rivalries. The knot at the heart of the play is revealed as made of two strands: the elders' insistence on their better wisdom and on tradition, and the lovers' escape to emotion and experience.
The text is beautifully adapted by Robert Mattney, Ciccolella, and Celeste Mendoza. Shakespeare's rhetorical flourishes are pruned back but the essential action and poetry remains. With a Teatro Vivoapproach, Spanish is regularly substituted for phrases of salutation, exclamation or declaration, fitted carefully into the pentameter. In the audience monolingual English spectators get bit of spice in the language without losing the thread of action, and bilingual spectators find new resonance. Not just in language but also in the relations of family, of women, of spouses, and of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities.
Typically for us English speakers, the young lovers move this play. Romeo and Juliet strive against senseless convention. They embody the purity and vitality of passion. Their deaths are caused by misunderstandings and the errors of others, leaving us the vision of love deftly snipped and preserved in the very bud.
Gwendolyn Kelso and Collin Bjork are beautiful young persons. In their thunderstruck passion they have eyes only for one another, a point nicely emphasized at their meeting, when Ciccolella freezes the quinceañera in mid-dance for their mutual courting and first two kisses. They have stepped out of the flow of time, just as they have stepped out of the bounds of convention.
There's a bouncing jubiliation and heedlessness in both of them throughout. Bjork, especially, is prey to his emotions. He exults to us as he perceives Julieta at her balcony; he huddles like a six-year-old below the stage when the intoxicated Mercutio and Benvolio go looking for him. Romeo proffers love to Capulets even as he receives kicks to the gut; he sweats and raves on his knees after killing Tybalt; and in Friar Laurence's cell he collapses in an unmanly puddle of tears. Thought and precaution are alien to his intoxication, a point emphasized in Juliet's bed at morning, when he would happily delude himself that morning is not yet come.
With the unfolding of events Julieta moves visibly from the warm safety of women's protection to the more dangerous world of men. Celeste Mendoza as her mother Lady Capulet adores her daughter, recognizing the arbitrary reach of convention and male dominance. Ernesto "Roze" Rosas as Lord Capulet is a man used to exercising authority, and the interplay between them as Latin male and Latin female is subtle and telling.
Diminutive, round Eva McQuade as the Nurse is a joyous and devoted confidante to Julieta, bawdy with Latina frankness and as comic as Tweetie Bird. McQuade plays the comedy with fresh abandon, whether surprised by the teasing of callow Capulet youth or grabbing tall Romeo by the ear and bringing him down to her level. Our sympathy and admiration for her spunk make her grief at Julieta's bedside all the more moving.
And yet, for me this tellling of Romeo and Juliet becomes a tragedy of male certainties and arrogance. Justin Scalise as Mercutio delivers, as usual, a droll and nuanced performance, prefiguring that message. He mocks, prances, and trusts in his skill and strength, but is undone by Romeo's interfering in the battle with Tybalt.
The two poles of this production are "Roze" Rosas as Lord Capulet and Ben Wolfe as Friar Laurence. These are remarkable portrayals of Latin men. Each is strong, decisive, and ultimately completely mistaken.
Rosas is canny and confident in the town's politics; magnanimous at the quinceañera, he orders young men of his clan not to attack the intruder Romeo. His negotiation of Julieta's betrothal to Paris is both family business and a benevolently intended surprise for his daughter. Once she refuses it, his temper is frightening to see; after her visit of conspiracy to Friar Laurence, Rosas' face lights up with pleasure at Julieta's feigned acceptance of the match. His grief at her bedside equals that of Lady Capulet. And the play reaches full resolution in the final moments when he steps forward and offers his hand to Montague: "Dame la mano, hermano Montague."
Equal in scope and emotional depth is his clerical counterpart, the good Friar Laurence. Ben Wolfe is vigorous, adamant and well spoken as he embraces the opportunity to reconcile the clans through the clandestine wedding of their young. He is appalled by Romeo's blubbering, and when Romeo shows misgivings, the good Friar gets in his face and gives him a good slap to bring him to reason. Laurence trusts in good intentions, artful planning and his religion -- with manly scorn he reproves the Capulets grieving over the apparently lifeless Julieta. "What? And is she not gone to a better place?"
Some productions of Romeo and Juliet cut entirely the Act V text in which the friar steps forward to explain the convoluted series of mishaps that resulted in the double suicide and the murder of Paris. In this production, the friar's recapitulation and confession atone for the arrogance and presumption of the clerical mainstay of the action. A friar is just a man, for all his holiness, and a man is fully capable both of hubris and of sin.
The Austin Shakespeare production is rich in its minor roles as well, including capable and expressive actors Jonathan Itchon as Benvolio, Michael Mendoza as Tybalt, Mario Ramirez as Balthasar, Richard Romeo as Sampson, Larry Frier as the Capulets' servant Peter, and musician Nathan Brockett. Atmospheric music is by Michael McKelvey and superb costumes are by Kim Ngo.
This is a freebie, folks, and it runs for a solid month in the park, Thursdays through Sundays. Ann Ciccolella and her actors will ask you for support both moral and financial, and the costumed actors will circulate around the hillside with baskets, seeking donations. Just like the ushers in church, they won't be asking you how much you're contributing. If you were attending a production of this quality elsewhere or in any playhouse in town, you'd have to dig deep to afford the tickets. So be generous -- bring along some cash to feed the bard!
Review by Spike Gillespie on Austinist.com, May 12: "Let us begin with a succinct review of Austin Shakespeare’s production of Romeo and Juliet, currently playing for Free at Zilker. Ready? Here it is: WOO-HOO! . . . .Because people? This is a great show. Opening night was particularly magical, what with a cool breeze blowing across the Sheffield Hillside Theater in Zilker Park and a near-full moon rising in the sky mid-show, as if the props department had some excellent connections with Mother Nature."
Review by Ryan E. Johnson on Austin.com, May 20
Review by Hanna Kenah in the Austin Chronicle, May 21
Review by Sean Fuentes at AustinTheaterReview, undated
KUT-FM audio blurb with Ann Ciccolella and others, May 8 (1min30sec)
KUT's "Aielli Unleashed" -- John Aielli interviews Ciccolella, musicians and actors, May 8 (30 min)
Short feature by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin on bilingual spectators attending Romeo and Juliet
Statesman's slide show of Romeo & Juliet and crowd (8 images)
EXTRA!
Excerpts from the program of
Austin Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
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Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare
Austin Shakespeare
