#1
Posted: 6/24/07 at 10:29pm
A battle of the elements is being pitched at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where “Romeo and Juliet” opened last night in a terrifically exciting new production, starring Lauren Ambrose as a Juliet truly to die for.
On the one hand there’s water, lots of it, in the form of a big, baffling pond that stretches across the stage, presumably for symbolic purposes, something to muse upon in perplexity as the actors slosh through it in rubber boots. On the other hand there’s the fire that rages in the blood of every performance, a conflagration so consuming that it threatens to turn the show into a collective funeral pyre.
Great news: Fire wins.
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For what Mr. Greif and his cast have achieved, and what most productions of “Romeo and Juliet” fatally lack, is a sense of infectious, instinctive urgency. Blood is boiling in everybody’s veins, whether from love or hate or an addling cocktail of the two, and it breeds impulsive action.
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As Juliet’s Nurse, the excellent Camryn Manheim (late of the series “The Practice”), talks fast and bawdily because it’s a way of pushing through the darkness in life, and she makes it clear that such pragmatism comes at a personal price. Mr. Pendleton’s Friar Laurence is an overgrown Boy Scout who can’t wait to fix things. And a brilliant Michael Cristofer finds a bipolar ferocity in Juliet’s father that makes his scenes with her, unusually, among the strongest in the play.
Mr. Isaac, last seen in the park as Proteus in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” two years ago, is sweetly and convincingly in thrall to his Juliet, a clumsy, overgrown puppy with the loyalty of a one-owner dog. But it’s Ms. Ambrose who gives the production its devastatingly torn heart.
Best known as the petulant Claire in “Six Feet Under,” Ms. Ambrose, who recently appeared on Broadway in “Awake and Sing!,” makes Juliet into a compelling bundle of mixed instincts. Even at 14, she’s the smartest person in Verona, capable of analyzing exactly what’s happening to her. Had she lived, she might have been a Viola or Rosalind, a Shakespeare heroine to tutor brash men in the finer arts of loving.
But because she is 14 (and you don’t doubt it), Juliet leads not with her head but her hormones. Every line she utters is infused with equal amounts of intelligence and impetuosity. She has enough erotic life force for both herself and Romeo, but Mr. Isaac gallantly contributes his share. And without a hint of the now usually obligatory nudity, this couple can make a drawn-out kiss light up the night, as Michael Friedman’s mood-enhancing (but never mood-pushing) music swells in the background.
Red-haired and luminously pale, this Juliet is a such a brightly glowing candle that the water motif at last makes perfect sense in that final, fatal scene in the Capulet family tomb. It takes a whole lot of water to quench such a flame. But, ah my friends, before then, it gave a lovely light.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/theater/reviews/25bran.html?pagewanted=1
On the one hand there’s water, lots of it, in the form of a big, baffling pond that stretches across the stage, presumably for symbolic purposes, something to muse upon in perplexity as the actors slosh through it in rubber boots. On the other hand there’s the fire that rages in the blood of every performance, a conflagration so consuming that it threatens to turn the show into a collective funeral pyre.
Great news: Fire wins.
-----------------------------------------------------------
For what Mr. Greif and his cast have achieved, and what most productions of “Romeo and Juliet” fatally lack, is a sense of infectious, instinctive urgency. Blood is boiling in everybody’s veins, whether from love or hate or an addling cocktail of the two, and it breeds impulsive action.
-------------------------------------------------------------
As Juliet’s Nurse, the excellent Camryn Manheim (late of the series “The Practice”), talks fast and bawdily because it’s a way of pushing through the darkness in life, and she makes it clear that such pragmatism comes at a personal price. Mr. Pendleton’s Friar Laurence is an overgrown Boy Scout who can’t wait to fix things. And a brilliant Michael Cristofer finds a bipolar ferocity in Juliet’s father that makes his scenes with her, unusually, among the strongest in the play.
Mr. Isaac, last seen in the park as Proteus in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” two years ago, is sweetly and convincingly in thrall to his Juliet, a clumsy, overgrown puppy with the loyalty of a one-owner dog. But it’s Ms. Ambrose who gives the production its devastatingly torn heart.
Best known as the petulant Claire in “Six Feet Under,” Ms. Ambrose, who recently appeared on Broadway in “Awake and Sing!,” makes Juliet into a compelling bundle of mixed instincts. Even at 14, she’s the smartest person in Verona, capable of analyzing exactly what’s happening to her. Had she lived, she might have been a Viola or Rosalind, a Shakespeare heroine to tutor brash men in the finer arts of loving.
But because she is 14 (and you don’t doubt it), Juliet leads not with her head but her hormones. Every line she utters is infused with equal amounts of intelligence and impetuosity. She has enough erotic life force for both herself and Romeo, but Mr. Isaac gallantly contributes his share. And without a hint of the now usually obligatory nudity, this couple can make a drawn-out kiss light up the night, as Michael Friedman’s mood-enhancing (but never mood-pushing) music swells in the background.
Red-haired and luminously pale, this Juliet is a such a brightly glowing candle that the water motif at last makes perfect sense in that final, fatal scene in the Capulet family tomb. It takes a whole lot of water to quench such a flame. But, ah my friends, before then, it gave a lovely light.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/theater/reviews/25bran.html?pagewanted=1
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
Updated On: 6/24/07 at 10:29 PM
