Orange County Premiere
Shakespeare's R & J
adapted by Joe Calarco
directed by Patricia Ansuini
- 08/13/07 REVIEW: LAStageScene.com
- 08/16/07 REVIEW: Fullerton Observer
- 08/17/07 REVIEW: OC Register
- 08/19/07 REVIEW: What The Butler Saw
- 08/25/07 REVIEW: LA Times Blog
THEATER REVIEW
Shakespeare's R & J
by Steven Stanley, LAStageScene.com
August 13, 2007
I'm not a big Shakespeare fan, I'll admit it. While a production like Peter Hall's As You Like It at the Ahmanson a few years back, or anything by Independent Shakespeare or A Noise Within can impress me with its acting and staging, I find Shakespeare's language hard to follow. To put it bluntly, I tune out.
That's why the Chance Theater's brilliant Orange County premiere of Joe Calarco's adaptation of Shakespeare's R & J comes as such a thrilling surprise to me.
Never before have I been as enthralled by a Shakespeare play; never before have his words been as engrossing or the language seemed more contemporary.
For.as you will soon see, R & J is not your typical Romeo and Juliet.
Unlike most Shakespeare productions which try to be different by setting the play in a new era (which usually means just different costume choices), R & J uses the text of Romeo and Juliet to create a brand new play.
Four uniformed Catholic high school boys escape from school with a copy of Romeo and Juliet. It is clear from their words (the 5% of the script that's not Shakespeare) that their school environment is repressive, sexist, and a bloody bore. Suddenly they begin to read Shakespeare's words. For the two boys who become Romeo and Juliet, this is not only a way to break free from the rigidity of school life but a way to express romantic and sexual feelings they have repressed. As the New York Times so aptly put it, "like teen-agers in the back of a movie theater, they see it as a make-out opportunity."
Patricia Ansuini has done an exceptional job of directing R & J. I'm not sure how many of the brilliant touches are hers, or come from Calarco's script (he has directed five major productions of the play), but it would appear that her skilled and inventive hand is everywhere in the staging. Four black straight- backed chairs are moved by the actors with drill squad precision throughout the play, becoming as much a part of the sound design as Dave Mickey's fine contributions. The characters are up and down ladders so often that only young actors in very good shape could have been cast in these roles, which also require several fights and all around physicality. As much a character as any Shakespeare created is the 9' x 2' deep red brocaded cloth which takes the place of swords and vials of poisons (among other props), become a part of a character's costume, and links Romeo and Juliet from their first meeting to their tragic demise.
There can't be four luckier or more talented young actors in all of Orange County than the four Ansuini has cast as her schoolboys. What amazing roles for them to play! Brett Mack makes an impressive West Coast debut as Mercutio, Lady Capulet and Friar Laurence, and an excellent Gregory Spradlin couldn't have gotten two more different roles to play than Tybalt and Juliet's nurse (he has fun with that one!). Michael Irish tops his award worthy work in last spring's Biloxi Blues with an intense and impassioned turn as Romeo. Finally, there is the absolutely exquisite work of Carlos Campos as Juliet. Eschewing any attempt at a girl's voice, Campos perfectly captures Juliet's loveliness and the joy of first love. Irish and Campos are heartbreakingly beautiful in their love scenes, and deserve the highest praise for their commitment to making these scenes so very real.
John Robinson's simple set design (used also for the main stage production of Sunday in the Park with George) works very well. Martin Noyes' skill as a fight director is very much on display. Bonnie Robinson Cherrie has created realistic uniforms for the boys to wear. And Masako Tobaru's superbly subtle lighting design (watch for the sunrise) is as much a part of the scenic design as is the set itself.
There is one unforgettable moment in the play that epitomizes the ingenuity and impact of R & J. It has come time for Romeo and Juliet to exchange their wedding vows, and suddenly homophobia raises its ugly head. The other two boys rebel, one of them grabbing the book and tearing pages out. But Romeo and Juliet are not to be prevented from declaring their love, and the way the two boy students find do this in Shakespeare's own words is a joy to behold.
That the Chance Theater has chosen such daring (for Orange County) material is proof of their motto, "The Art is in the Chance." That an older and mostly hetero opening night audience could watch a story of two boys in love (and probably see for the first time two boys exchanging passionate kisses) and pretty much not bat an eye is testimony to the progress we've made towards becoming a more open-minded and accepting society in the past ten years. That Ansuini and her marvelous cast have pulled all of this off is good news indeed for Orange County audiences, and anyone in L.A. with the good sense to drive down to Anaheim and savor this triumphant piece of theater.
CHANCE THEATER, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills, CA 92807 (714) 777-3033 Aug. 12 - Sep. 16 Sat. 4pm; Sun. 6pm
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THEATER REVIEW
Shakespeare's R & J
by Joyce Rosenthal, Fullerton Observer
August 16, 2007
Shakespeare's works have been successfully transposed to a variety of places and times other than 16th century England. One of the most interesting places, a restrictive Catholic boys' school, can be seen in Joe Calarco's Shakespeare's R & J now playing at The Chance Theater. Set in modern times, the opening scene demonstrates the school's strict discipline as four students in uniform take us through their classes in swift succession without any trace of emotion.
They sneak out one evening, recover a hidden copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and take turns reading it out loud. When this is not enough, they begin acting out the various parts in the play. This game soon becomes more than a game as they get caught up in the emotions of the story of two "star-crossed" lovers caught in a family feud which ultimately ends with their death.
All of the familiar characters are here: Romeo, Juliet, the Nurse, Mercutio, Tybalt, Friar Lawrence etc. As the players begin to physically react to and with each other this production of R & J explodes with all the pent-up passion of these repressed young men. The characters are brought to life exceptionally well by Michael Irish, Carlos Campos, Brett Mack and Gregory Spradlin. Except for the opening, most of the play is the text of Romeo and Juliet.
The action takes place on a relatively bare stage designed by John Robinson. There are four wooden chairs, two ladders and bolt of red cloth used in imaginative ways. Director Patricia Ansuini keeps the pace rapid yet insures that Shakespeare's words are audible and Fight Director Martin Noyes ably choreographs the confrontations.
If you like Shakespeare, this is the play for you. If you don't like Shakespeare, this play may make you change your mind.
Shakespeare's R & J plays at the Chance Theater through September 16, 2007.
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THEATER REVIEW
'Shakespeare's R & J' puts new slant on ancient tale
Review: Chance Theater gives Shakespeare retelling its O.C. premiere - but how valid is this version?
by Eric Marchese, OC Register
August 17, 2007
With "Shakespeare's R&J," Joe Calarco delivers a retelling of "Romeo and Juliet" in a time - roughly the 1950s - and place - a Catholic boarding school - in which the play has been banned.
On their own, late at night and after grueling classes, four teen students decide to re-enact the play. By using this method to give us the play, Calarco allows Shakespeare's themes to resonate.
In the play's Orange County premiere at the Chance Theater, we indeed get a taste of the repression felt by the four students. The young men - Michael Irish, Carlos Campos, Brett Mack and Gregory Spradlin - are, like the two teen title characters of "Romeo and Juliet," filled with thrilling, ecstatic emotions, feelings so raw they can barely be contained.
That's precisely Calarco's point, and Patricia Ansuini's staging gives us not only the realization of forbidden love between Romeo (Irish) and Juliet (Campos), whose families have sworn their mutual hatreds; but also of the world of literature forbidden to the male students, and how those students circumvent the system to explore the work of the Bard and try to work through its meaning.
At first, the quartet, bored silly with conjugating Latin verbs in class all day, regard "Romeo and Juliet" with lighthearted frivolity. Then, as the events of that play become decidedly life-and-death, their regard for it grows more.
"Shakespeare's R&J" is too slimmed-down to be called an adaptation, yet Calarco hasn't sufficiently sketched out the four boys to term this a play-within-a-play, calling them simply Student #1, Student #2, etc.
The subtext implies homoeroticism among the four teens fostered, somewhat ironically, by the school's brutal control. What's left is a contemporary psychosexual version of the classic that's no substitute for any first-rate staging of "Romeo and Juliet." If nothing else, "Shakespeare's R&J" would make a fine introduction to the works of Shakespeare for teens and pre-teens not quite ready for the real thing.
Without preaching too hard, Ansuini's staging is suitably dark, peppered with just enough playful flashes to lessen the tension. Considering the play's events occur, the program tells us, "in the minds of four young men and the words of Shakespeare," this is a minimalist staging using just four chairs, two stepladders and a red sash as props. The sash, in particular, is a versatile prop that simulates daggers, swords, vials of potions and the liquids themselves. Ansuini cannily uses it as a visual means of connecting one character to another.
Irish's Student #1 shares a few lines with his castmates as the powerful Capulet, but that aside, Irish has the luxury of developing a single character, Romeo, throughout. His student champs at the bit to embody the torturned teen's masochistic existence. Seeing that Tybalt (Spradlin) has slain his cousin Mercutio (Mack), Irish's Romeo exhibits a palpable fury. Any way you cut it, Irish is the engine driving this production, his subtlety and power as Romeo propelling every scene forward.
In the challenging role of Student #2, Campos is an impish Benvolio. More importantly, he plays Juliet as at first uncertain of her feelings, then undergoing ecstatic highs and agonizing lows as she falls for Romeo. As Juliet's Nurse, Spradlin uses broadly comedic tones that suggest Queens or Brooklyn, but his Student #4 finds his most satisfying power as the vengeful Tybalt.
Mack's Student #3 undertakes numerous roles, including Mercutio and Friar Laurence. His Mercutio is ferociously energetic, but it's his stern yet empathic Friar who connects Calarco's revision of the classic with the material's Elizabethan roots.
Listen carefully when Mack speaks as this articulate character, and you can hear more than 400 years of history falling away to reveal what every author, Shakespeare and Calarco included, wishes to reveal - human nature.
Freelance writer Eric Marchese has covered entertainment for the Register since 1984.
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THEATER REVIEW
Shakespeare's R & J
by James Scarborough, What The Butler Saw
August 19, 2007
What do you get when you take the setting of "The Cider House Rules", add the tone of "Dead Poet's Society", mix in the crossover of art and life of "Shakespeare in Love", and underlay it with crosscurrents of "Maurice"?
Shakespeare's R & J, adapted by Joe Calarco and directed by Patricia Ansuini for the Chance Theater.
It's a lollapalooza of a concept, acted with subtlety, directed with nuance and panache.
The result is electric.
It's not so much a romance of doomed love set in Verona (yawn) as a tale of four schoolboys who conduct a clandestine, lights-out reading of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and find that its spirit catalyzes something latent in two of them.
The result? Two storylines that occasionally intersect, held together by a magnificently conceived wine red piece of material that functions as a prop (blood, a trellis, a blanket, a scarf, a shroud, a lariat) and as a symbol (attraction, coquetry, lust, passion, and despair).
Ansuini highlights issues of conformity that illuminate both the Bard's tale of woe as well as the circumstances that surround its enactment.
Oh how they conform at first.
The costumes: Preppie Handbook khakis, white shirts, and navy blazers. The choreography: lock step military movements when a bell dismisses class. The expression: lessons learned by heart but not by passion; erect carriages; earnest expressions; bold voices but dull eyes; and the sense that order, logic, and propriety had been tattooed body and soul into these young men and, like something out of Biloxi Blues, would inform and influence the rest of their lives.
Oh how later on they don't conform, at least not in a way we expect them to.
Until that first kiss between R (Michael Irish) and J (Carlos Campos), the recitation is scripted but breezy. The students are into the spirit of the play, into the freedom from their regimented lives, and, inadvertently, into making sense of their own inchoate bodies and feelings.
Greg Spradlin's Nurse reminds me of Marge Simpson's sisters and Brett Mack's Mercutio is witty, brash and loyal. True to form, Irish's R is a Petrarchean swain, Campos's J is demure and coy.
The initial R & J kiss begins with that lip-skim way you kiss someone from France, not quite understanding the double air kiss thing; then, when they hold it a tick beyond your comfort level, it seems to suck the air out of the theatre.
Even more dramatic was the sudden transformation of the various characters that Spradlin and Mack played. Gone is the spontaneity and lyricism, replaced by, if not an attitude of disgust then at least a sense of whatever, dude.
This production reminds you of art's transformative powers; how the sublimation of repression makes for great theatre and even greater incursions into your common humanity.
Performances are 4 PM Saturday and 6 PM Sunday. The play runs until September 16. Tickets are $22-25. The Theatre is located at 5552 E. La Palma Avenue, Anaheim Hills. For more information, call (714) 777-3033 or visit www.chancetheater.com.
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THEATER REVIEW
Shakespeare's R & J
reviews on LA Times Blog
September 16, 2007
Cedric Volk
Aliso Viejo, CA
A show that pushes the boundaries of our modern day social mores, R&J carries its audience members, kicking and screaming, through an emotional gauntlet charged with passion. Truly this has been the most intense and well-executed Shakespeare piece I have ever seen. Cedric =)
August 25, 2007
Lauran F.
Los Angeles, CA
An absolutely outstanding show. Solid performances. I have never been so connected to any other Shakespeare piece I have seen. Well done!
August 12, 2007
Michael L.
Huntington Beach, CA
Set in the world of a Catholic school, 4 repressed boys discover Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. What starts off as an introductory reading of the text becomes an impassioned gut-wrenching performance of the piece without the restrictions of gender or sexuality. Beautifully directed, minimally staged and lit, the 4 member ensemble brings Shakespeare's words to life and give them modern-day relevancy. While all four give wonderful performances, Carlos Campos as Juliet is an absolute revelation....
Write your own L.A. Times review about this production.
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