ROMEO AND JULIET
Folio Theatre Company
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Performed on a severe set (mostly composed of the brick wall of Folio’s storefront space) with only the (uncredited) costumes to establish the period, Wild’s Romeo and Juliet is strongest when it plays as if, moment by moment, no one knows what’s next. To achieve that refreshing sense of unpredictability the Folio players jettison the foreshadowing prologue and tighten the scenes. One happy omission is the fifth-act business in which the slow friar fails to deliver the note from Friar Lawrence to Romeo. Less excusable is the elimination of Romeo’s parents, and thus of the reconciliation scene between Capulets and Montagues; and several actors–there are only nine in all–are forced to take double or triple roles, stretching themselves beyond their range.
Still, what fuels Shakespeare’s eternally young script are the knife-edged passions, which we see in the play’s street brawls, adolescent raillery, practical jokes, and the individual excesses of its characters: Paris’s jealousy, Tybalt’s rages, the fury of Juliet’s father at a suddenly grown-up and rebellious daughter.
HENRY FAUST
Circle Theatre
