| Romeo and Juliet Makes a Splash in Central Park |
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Romeo and JulietJune 5–July 8, 2007  Oscar Isaac as Romeo and Camryn Manheim as Juliet's Nurse.  Christopher Evan Welch as Mercutio, a friend of the Montagues, playing a song for his friends.  The Public Theater's interpretation of the famous balcony scene--with Lauren Ambrose as Juliet with Oscar Isaac as Romeo.  Romeo delivers a passionate kiss to Juliet.  Michael Cristofer and Opal Alladin as Lord and Lady Capulet are devasted to find their daughter Juliet presumably dead.  The lovers hold each other in death. Michael Grief’s production of probably the most famous of all of the Bard’s tragedies–even people who have never seen nor read the play know what it’s all about–fills “the two hours' traffic of our stage” (actually three) with pratfalls, double takes, double entendres, and other desperate attempts at hilarity: there’s certainly nothing tragic about the fatal romance between these two teenagers from Verona. The question is whether or not this production is supposed to be funny; to be sure, casting the always obvious Camryn Manheim (known to TV viewers from sitcoms like “Will and Grace” and “Ally McBeal”) as Juliet’s Nurse presupposes the Central Park audience will laugh at anything. (And many do.) It’s true that the Nurse is a rare comic character in the play, and her witty asides underscore the impending tragedy. But Manheim underscores her line readings with groans, grunts, snorts and other tomfoolery guaranteed to keep us in stitches, whether or not the text calls for it. It seems that, at Central Park every summer, Shakespeare’s own wicked sense of humor is not to be trusted, so actors are encouraged to ham it up mercilessly, so even if subtle puns fly over spectators’ heads, their eye-rolling and obscene hand gestures will surely win them back. That might work for lighter or lesser fare like “The Comedy of Errors” or “Titus Andronicus,”but doing it to more substantial plays in the canon is dubious at best. Maybe Grief feels that, since everyone knows “Romeo & Juliet,” he’s free to mess with it. Which is what he does, as the entire first act is given over to Romeo’s pal, Mercutio, and his sidesplitting antics. As played by Christopher Evan Welch, Mercutio is a gleeful prankster and happy-go-lucky soul: his lengthy soliloquy about women is performed while the actor runs about the Delacorte stage, ending as he lies down in the water holding a mandolin, strumming and splashing about. Oh yes, the water–the entire stage is a shallow pool that most of the characters slog through for no particular reason. Perhaps Greif thinks that the play is set in Venice, not Verona. But what’s the reason for a massive steel-girded bridge spanning the stage in two sections? In addition, the entire set revolves–a la the original production of “Les Miz”–and the bridge is often moved independently by the actors. It all makes for some nice visuals, but also much unnecessary silliness, i.e., at the end, when those still living descend into the crypt after the pair’s suicides, they must first walk down stairs toward the back of the stage, then run to the front to encounter the dead bodies. Manheim is the worst offender histrionically; at least Welch knows how to speak his lines gracefully and with the poetry intact: even while joking around, he’s still a formidable Mercutio. (He dies in Act I, so after intermission, the production becomes insufferable.) Of the supporting cast, Austin Pendleton is a goofily endearing Friar Lawrence, while Michael Cristofer, as Juliet’s father, makes an impression by being the only one among the teens’ parents to invest his lines with emotion. And our title pair? Oscar Isaac gives it his all as Romeo, and his athleticism carries him through the sword fights, but something prevents him from being a truly dashing and irresistible suitor for Juliet, played by Lauren Ambrose, revered from her role in yet another overrated HBO series, “Six Feet Under.” Ambrose isn’t a bad actress–she speaks her dialogue cleanly and clearly, and actually seems to understand what she’s saying, a rarity nowadays–and she has the most ravishing head of fiery red hair I’ve ever seen onstage, but she doesn’t get to the core of Shakespeare’s smartest and most sympathetic tragic heroine. Ambrose’s appearance apparently gave Greif his best idea, which comes the moment Romeo first sees Juliet at the party he sneaked into. Amid the multicultural denizens of Verona, this Juliet stands out in her blindingly white dress, luminously pale skin and amazing red tresses: only a blind Romeo would have missed her. Too bad Greif didn’t have more illuminating notions for this “Romeo and Juliet.”
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