There are two things that need to be done, I think, when adapting a Shakespeare play. First, respects must be paid to the language — the actors must own their lines, the director must choose the emphases that suit his/her interpretation best. And second, the cast must act as translators, using their bodies to re-interpret the script and make it relatable for the modern audience, so that thumb-biting, say, can actually be perceived as an offense. For the most part, Four Humors Theater’s staging of Romeo and Juliet, showing this weekend and next at the Bedlam Theater, accomplishes these tasks.
It’s a minimal production. Romeo (Jason Bohon) wears jeans and a hoodie; Juliet (Elise Langer) is in a jersey dress. (Both sport ergonomically designed Puma sneakers.) Aside from a tire swing and a couple moveable screen doors, the set is mostly bare, which is nice — there’s no gimmickry.
Director Jason Ballweber has taken obvious pains to make this an intimate performance. When Romeo wanders into the crowd and begins to direct his speech to audience members, there’s a genuine feel to it; it seems he’s actually speaking to the theatergoers, not just reciting his lines in one’s personal space. Throughout, Bohon sustains his role well. He plays a thoughtful Romeo, humanizing the character’s rather absurd (rather pubescent) passions and moods — he’s gloomy, sure, but never becomes melodramatically morose.
Likewise, Langer adds a good bit of levity to Juliet’s character. She delivers her speeches like a fourteen-year-old girl talking to her friend on the phone — a sort of rapid-fire, valley-esque style that makes one believe she has butterflies fluttering in her head. At first it’s a bit hard to get used to — she’s rushing through the lines and it’s difficult to catch the meaning of the bard’s words — but after a scene or two, when the audience is able to settle in, it’s actually delightful. Impressive, even.
Finally, Kimberly Richardson turns out a fantastic performance as Juliet’s nurse. Ballweber has invested a particular amount of weight in this role, turning the nurse into one of Shakespeare’s ‘fool’ characters, as from Twelfth Night or Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Dressed something like Mrs. Doubtfire, she’s the wise old lady with her fingers in everyone’s business, her ward’s interests closest to her heart. Maybe the most effective scene of the play is late in the second act when Juliet and her nurse meet in the Capulets’ orchard. The nurse has just come from the friar’s with news of Juliet’s wedding, and Juliet has to wring it out from her. The nurse paces up and down the bowling-lane-like stage, feigning woe, avoiding Juliet’s questions, causing her to go into something like hysteria. And then, just as the audience is beginning to wonder how serious she is, Richardson flashes a quick smile to the crowd, letting us in on her joke, before she goes on tormenting the young lover.
It’s a good, light approach to the play — typical of the Four Humors style that has won them so much praise in the last few years. When the minstrels begin to sing a medieval rendition of "Gin and Juice," one is reminded of the 4HT production of Bards, wherein the chorus de-modified the Wu-Tang Clan’s "C.R.E.A.M."
At times, though — especially in the first few acts — the staging sacrifices feeling for humor. The balcony scene is where we first get a real look at Juliet’s flighty character, and here she seems a bit too concerned with making sure the audience knows how cute she is than with her connection to Romeo. Also, though a Shakespeare play isn’t a Shakespeare play without a little cross-dressing, casting choices make the exchanges between Mercutio and Benvolio often seem ripped from an episode of Will and Grace.
That said, the airy first half makes the darkness of the second half that much more clear. When the tragedy begins to unfold, we haven’t been so bogged down by melancholy that we can’t stomach anymore. Rather, we’re ready for the sadness when it comes, and as tragicomedies go,
it is all the more poignant.