Reviewed 12/12/03
While watching Nearly Naked Theatre's latest, Joe Calarco's Shakespeare's R & J, I was heartened to see four Catholic school boys so reverent about the Bard of Avon and his tragic tale of star crossed lovers. After their days of regimented learning and activities, they creep up to the attic and religiously tear into a reading of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Drawing on the history of productions during Shakespeare's era, the four boys play all the roles, male and female. Of course, this is a Damon Dering production, and simply sticking with the historical facts is one thing, but flesh is even better. And so, with a little license taken, Michael Sherwin once more gets to show us his privates and Thomas Bigley gets to briefly bare all for (I assume) his first time in public. The themes of forbidden love are extended in this production. While Shakespeare's youths are star crossed by their family names, two of the four Catholic schoolboys performing the piece are star crossed by the love that dares not speak its name, which adds a nice layer onto the piece. This production is excellently directed, interesting to consider, and at nearly three hours, too much of a good thing.
Dering is a fan of choreographic movements, and he gets to go wild here. For example, the opening drill march of a day in classes is inspired and his clever convention for representing the oppressive male figures of Romeo and Juliet is enjoyable and different enough each time to keep it fresh. The tension that exists in this struggle of man versus man and man versus God is gingerly handled. He doesn't allow the men playing women's roles to be too drag-like, a definite plus. However, the need to expose flesh doesn't quite work, as it seems that Student 4, who reeks of homophobia, is set up in a way that makes it impossible to believe his remaining. The piece is meticulously wrought, though somewhere after 10:30, I couldn't help but notice my mind wandering despite the good work on the stage.
The four actors are very consistent, and each has a character in the play within the play at which they excel. Mr. Sherwin's Romeo is full of bravado, quick to swing his grand Italian emotions like a mace. Whether wooing or wailing, Sherwin goes to the precipice and never falls. Mr. Bigley's Juliet is a study in underplaying. Never overt or caricatured, Bigley is a charming and tentative Juliet, a good choice for this piece considering the subtext of his main character's experimentation with homosexuality. The heterosexual contingent is also well acted. Barry Finnegan does a great job with Friar Laurence, Mercutio, and Lady Capulet. His Friar is studied, his Mercutio seething, and his Lady Capulet is a distant snob. Patrick McGinley is good as Tybalt, but great as the Nurse. Too easily could this role slip into farce, but as his character is the most reticent about the burgeoning romance between Sherwin and Bigley's students, he often tempers his character with his basic morality, an excellent convention.
The tiny Space Theatre is always a challenge for designers, though they score with this. Alicia Marie Sanderson's set is an excellent study in perspective, creating a believable attic to a stodgy boy's school through cutaway walls of brick and hardwood floors that manages to transport itself to Verona and environs. Mr. Sherwin's lighting is expressive enough to show all moods and times. Sherwin and Dering's sound design is nicely realized, while Kerry McCue's costumes are appropriate. The cast is able to gracefully execute Tim Butterfield's extensive fight choreography.
While this production is generally unflawed, the sheer preponderance of material and subtext makes this overwhelming as it nears 11 pm. I can't imagine how Dering and Dramaturg Maren Maclean-Mascarelli could have pared anything away without potentially damaging the overall product, but something needed to give as the inevitable resolutions of both Shakespeare's characters and the schoolboys fell into place. If the biggest criticism lies in experiencing sensory and intellectual overload, that should motivate you to catch it before it dissipates. It's not like any of the shows that NNT does are likely to grace valley theaters ever again.