Jared Sakren has flung his wide-ranging interpretations of Shakespeare around the globe, but never before has he taken us to a place so timely and had it make so little of an impact on the production and the script. In his current mounting of Romeo and Juliet, Sakren moves the feuding Capulets and Montagues from Renaissance Italy to an unspecified period somewhere in the Middle East. Jeff Thomson’s set is a grey clapboard affair with three sets of doors (the back pair broke on the opening Saturday night) and one surprise that is used twice. It’s not so much nondescript as rather cheap looking. The setting is instead hinted at through Michael J. Eddy’s geometric goboes, Lois K. Myers’ generic Arabic-tinged costumes, and the music that was (perhaps) composed by Richard Jennings. I couldn’t tell you the era, for Myers’ costumes range from traditional Bedouin to one modern gun-toting, sunglass-wearing strong-arm. Sweet paper lanterns adorn the party, while garish fluorescent lanterns eliminate shadows from the crypt. Lost amongst this plethora of inconsistencies and non-choices are a couple of good performances, many of the steady ones we’ve grown to expect from Southwest Shakespeare’s alums, and a few that are as lost as the audience.

Sakren’s productions usually flourish, while this one wilts. It lacks energy, consistency, and a discernable through-line. He sidesteps dancing issues by having choreographer Ellisha Tash turn the party into a scene out of Ben Hur. Even the ordinarily exquisite fight choreography of David Barker, who also does a strong turn as Friar Laurence, appears listless and lacks a few cool scimitars to add some desperately-needed window dressing. It all looks like the kind of blocking and direction we’ve seen from Southwest Shakes before, but without the electricity.

His Romeo (James Knight) and Juliet (a rather too old-for-the-role Michele Vazquez) connect, and their love scenes crackle, but he’s a little too flat through his monologues. She may not look 14, but she’s the stronger performer, engagingly following the lightning-quick maturation of her character. The appearance of Cathy Dresbach in the comedic role of the Nurse would ordinarily be cause for celebration, and she does prove enjoyable through several of her bits, but it is as generic of place and time as the set. Remove her colorful burqa, and she might just as well be wearing jeans and a blouse. The moment of her keening later in the play is so authentic, as is the same reaction from Sandy Elias as Lord Capulet and Diane Senffner as his Lady, that it jolts the audience into remembering the long-forgotten intended theme. Elias and Senffner have their moments, but you can’t escape their being so non-Arabic. The same is true of most everyone else in the ensemble.

Eric Schoen’s Mercutio is prone to apoplectic heights, most notably his Queen Mab seizure. More subdued and subsequently more unremarkable is Noah Todd’s Tybalt, which is probably a balance to Schoen ’s histrionics and flash. Barker plays the Friar with an earnestness and intensity that makes his doomed machinations sympathetic, but his character suffers from an even deeper schizophrenia than the others as he signs the cross and remains enrobed in the Christian clerical trappings of his original role, making one wonder what more powerful possibilities could have come from his having been drawn more as Imam than monk.