Posted: 10/24/24 at 6:11pm
Shortly after tonight's review embargo is lifted, the song "Man of the House" — performed by Rachel Zegler and written for the production by Jack Antonoff — will be released at midnight as a single on streaming platforms.
Posted: 10/24/24 at 10:19pm
Variety
‘Romeo and Juliet’ Review: Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler Headline a Shakespeare Tragedy That’s More Fun Than It Should Be
https://variety.com/2024/legit/reviews/romeo-and-juliet-review-kit-connor-rachel-zegler-broadway-1236189568/
eta: Looks like they realized they went too early and pulled it.
eta: Review is live again.
Updated On: 10/24/24 at 10:19 PM
Posted: 10/24/24 at 10:58pm
NY Stage Review
ROMEO + JULIET: STAR-CROSS’D LOVERS IN STAR-CROSS’D “FOR OUR TIME” PRODUCTION
By David Finkle
★★☆☆☆ Kit Connor's Romeo is notable in Shakespeare's romantic tragedy, under director Sam Gold's faulty hand
https://nystagereview.com/2024/10/24/romeo-juliet-star-crossd-lovers-in-star-crossd-for-our-time-production/
ROMEO + JULIET: SHAKESPEARE FOR THE TIKTOK GENERATION
By Melissa Rose Bernardo
★★★☆☆ Sam Gold gives the tragedy a Gen Z makeover, complete with a pop music, plushies, and two popular young stars
https://nystagereview.com/2024/10/24/romeo-juliet-shakespeare-for-the-tiktok-generation/
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:01pm
The Variety review seems to be back up. BWW's sample includes this passage:
The audience has to believe that these are not just two children caught up in the early days of first love, but that they’re fated by the Gods and the universe to have met and to have died.
Now forgive me, but that seems to be looking at the text as if it were a Greek tragedy - that's not how Shakespeare operates. Shakespeare's tragic characters meet their fate due to their own flaws, their own choices. Romeo and Juliet meet their fates because their youthful enthusiasm leads them to make a series of impulsive, dumb mistakes. Admittedly, they aren't as layered as The Bard's other tragic heroes, but it's pretty clearly spelled out in the text.
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:02pm
Deadline is a rave:
‘Romeo + Juliet’ Broadway Review: Kit Connor And Rachel Zegler Take The Bard To A Proper Rave-Up
https://deadline.com/2024/10/romeo-juliet-broadway-review-kit-connor-rachel-zegler-1236145764/
"make room, plenty of room, for Sam Gold‘s Romeo + Juliet rave-up starring the compelling and well-matched Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, opening tonight on Broadway.
Pumped up by Jack Antonoff’s thumping music (the several songs he wrote includes the new “Man of the House,” performed by Zegler), the play, occasionally set in something akin to an Elizabethan dance club complete with DJ and some 21st Century moves, is perhaps the best use in ages of Circle in the Square’s often troublesome in-the-round staging. Even when Connor’s Romeo and Zegler’s Juliet square off from opposite sides of the venue, their invisible chains – hormones, by another term – are magic."
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:03pm
Hollywood Reporter
‘Romeo + Juliet’ Theater Review: Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler Shake up Shakespeare With Brat-Coded Attitude
Sam Gold directs the high-energy, TikTok-generation Broadway revival, which brings original Jack Antonoff tunes and a notably young ensemble to the classic romantic tragedy.
https://hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/romeo-and-juliet-theater-review-kit-connor-rachel-zegler-shakespeare-jack-antonoff-1236043115/
"Sam Gold‘s Gen Z Romeo + Juliet revival can be chaotic and undisciplined, but it’s also breathless and swoony, angry and violent, tender and sexy AF. "
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:04pm
The Guardian
Romeo + Juliet review – maximalist Broadway reinvention goes too far
Circle in the Square, New York
West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler and Heartstopper’s Kit Connor lift an aggressively poppy new youth take on the tragic romance
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/oct/24/romeo-juliet-broadway-review
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:06pm
NYT: Jesse Green is moderately positive, but not a Critic's Pick
Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler Make Puppy Love in the Puppy Pile
The Broadway revival of “Romeo + Juliet” plays to the TikTok crowd. But maybe that’s a good thing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/theater/romeo-juliet-kit-carson-rachel-zegler.html
"The play is thus less terrifying than teenifying — hence the plus sign instead of the “and” in the title. The lobby, lit like a junior high school prom, offers not just the expected merch and specialty mocktails but a table where ticket holders can learn about registering to vote. The choreography by Sonya Tayeh lands perfectly in the zone between professional movement and what a nerd might do in front of a mirror. Fangirling and fanboying are strongly encouraged. There is nothing unlikable about any of this.
It’s a little slick, though, at least for seen-that adults. The play’s twisty language, expressive of twisty thoughts, is largely untangled but, in the process, flattened. (Gold’s edit brings the running time, not counting intermission, to “the two hours’ traffic of the stage” Shakespeare mentions, but some of that traffic is stop-and-go.) I smiled a lot but never came close to crying.
Is that a reasonable response to aim for when staging the world’s most famous weepie? For me, seeing so many young people engaged, it is. "
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:06pm
Two stars from NY Post
‘Romeo + Juliet’ review: ‘Heartstopper’ star Kit Connor shines in hollow Broadway show
https://nypost.com/2024/10/24/entertainment/romeo-juliet-review-kit-connor-shines-in-hollow-broadway-show/
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:08pm
B+ from Entertainment Weekly
Romeo + Juliet review: Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler are (violent) delights in Gen Z take on Shakespeare play
"
While the production is truly a visual feast, there are a few moments where Romeo + Juliet stumbles, the biggest one being that there are several scenes where having the same actor play two roles feels jarring. The clearest example is when Juliet's mother, played by Fadiran, comes in to celebrate her daughter's marriage to Paris (Gían Pérez), only to rush back onto the stage moments later as her father and threaten to oust Juliet from the family if she doesn't agree to the wedding. While Fadiran does a solid job of playing these characters differently — there's no doubt which role he is portraying — it still feels questionable and pulls viewers out of the drama of the scene.
The play also features music by Jack Antonoff, including two songs that could removed without ruining the overall plot. The song "Man of the House," while a wonderful showcase of Zegler's dazzling vocal skills, doesn't give much more insight to the developing crisis between Romeo and Juliet that isn’t already explored in the subsequent act.
It's abundantly clear that Shakespeare purists expecting this production to be a timeless tale filled with medieval garb and banquets will find themselves up in arms over Romeo + Juliet's bold choices. But the visceral, teary-eyed reactions that several young audience members in the crowd had during the play is proof enough of how influential it will be for a brand new generation of theatergoers. To quote Perez: "Thank you, William Shakespeare!" Mic drop. "
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:09pm
Holdren in Vulture is negative
Kissing by the Book: Connor and Zegler in Romeo & Juliet
https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-connor-zegler-gold-romeo-juliet.html
"At the center of the whole trendy, clubby, stuffed-animals-and-inflatable-furniture jumble is, as Cordelia once said to her dad, nothing. One could be forgiven for walking away from this show’s two (and a half) hours’ traffic thinking that maybe Romeo and Juliet is kind of mid after all. Such is the enervating effect of so aggressively clickbaity and uncurious a production."
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:10pm
USA Today is mixed (to negative?)
‘Romeo + Juliet’ review: Kit Connor, Rachel Zegler sparkle in aggressively hip revival
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2024/10/24/kit-connor-rachel-zegler-romeo-juliet-review/75775741007/
"Gold tries his damnedest to bring something new to William Shakespeare’s 1597 play, which has been performed in just about every space imaginable for the last four centuries, including three dozen times on Broadway. He occasionally achieves something gorgeous and intimate, thanks in large part to the white-hot chemistry of his two leads. But for slightly older audiences, now nursing heartburn more often than heartbreak, you’ll likely just feel exhausted."
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:11pm
Observer is positive
Review: Juliet Is Fire, Romeo Got Mad Rizz In This Shakespeare Glowup
Characters vape, gender is fluid, desire bi, and death assured in director Sam Gold's hyperpop reimagining of 'Romeo + Juliet.'
https://observer.com/2024/10/review-juliet-is-fire-romeo-got-mad-rizz-in-this-shakespeare-glowup/
"In the final scene (a bit rushed perhaps so Gold could keep the action more or less at two hours) Romeo and Juliet die splayed over each other. Their cruciform positioning mirrors the giant LED crucifix against the wall behind the DJ. A pretty tableau, but nothing terribly deep. You could say the same of other directorial flourishes, but they’re easily overlooked, since the language is well-delivered and the ensemble appealing. It’s the least boring or cringe Shakespeare I’ve seen in a long time. "
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:12pm
Chicago Tribune
Review: In ‘Romeo + Juliet’ on Broadway, it’s hard to hear the young love amid all the excitement
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/10/24/review-in-romeo-juliet-on-broadway-its-hard-to-hear-the-young-love-amid-all-the-excitement/
"Alas, while the two leads are sincere, the show itself is (a) altogether too much of too much; (b) a bit of an ill-focused mess; and (c) less than engrossing."
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:14pm
Time Out
Romeo + Juliet
3 out of 5 stars
Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler play Shakespeare's doomed couple in Sam Gold's Gen Z–flavored production.
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/romeo-juliet-broadway-review-kit-connor-rachel-zegler
" And ultimately, I think, that undermines the play; it accentuates the role of simple bad luck in Romeo and Juliet’s fate, and detracts from the larger point. This production seems intent on appealing to TikTok audiences who don’t know much about the play going in, which is a laudable goal, and I think it will succeed. But those newcomers may be surprised to find that what they thought was a tragedy about young people crushed by societal constraints is actually the sad tale of two nice kids who died from a lack of adult supervision. "
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:14pm
Theatrely
An Astonishing ROMEO + JULIET For A New Age — Review
https://www.theatrely.com/post/an-astonishing-romeo-juliet-for-a-new-age-review
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:15pm
4 out of 5 stars from The Telegraph
Romeo + Juliet, Broadway: rising British star Kit Connor is a knockout in this lively production
Starring opposite Rachel Zegler, the Heartstopper alumnus dazzles in Sam Gold’s new staging at the Circle in the Square, New York
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/romeo-juliet-broadway-review-kit-connor-rachel-zegler/
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:16pm
Slant
‘Romeo + Juliet’ Review: In New Broadway Revival, Partying Is Such Sweet Sorrow
Rachel Zegler and Kit Connor’s casting will persuade their fans that this story is dope AF.
https://www.slantmagazine.com/theater/romeo-and-juliet-review-rachel-zegler-kit-connor/
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:18pm
Whoa, these are a lot better than some of us thought they would be!
Good for them.
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:18pm
Isherwood in WSJ is positive
‘Romeo + Juliet’ Review: A Raucous Romance on Broadway
Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler star in Sam Gold’s frenzied, youthful staging of the Shakespeare tragedy.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/romeo-juliet-review-romance-on-broadway-rachel-zegler-kit-connor-sam-gold-6b43d781
"But all the frenzied activity, which spills off the stage into the auditorium, and even into the rafters above it, doesn’t get in the way of Shakespeare’s enduring tale, even when it seems to be trying to. “Romeo and Juliet” benefits from a pedal-to-the-floor approach, as events conspire with accelerating speed to destroy the newborn love of the title characters."
Posted: 10/24/24 at 11:21pm
NY Sun
Director Sam Gold’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’ Is Technically Shakespeare, but the Bard’s Words Are Often Overshadowed in This Garish Production
While I have no problem with alterations such as suggesting Benvolio secretly pines for Romeo, I don’t find it especially daring in 2024. I found myself asking, as I did often while watching this production, what does this add to the story?
https://www.nysun.com/article/director-sam-golds-romeo-juliet-is-technically-shakespeare-but-the-bards-words-are-often-overshadowed-in-this-garish-production
Posted: 10/25/24 at 12:01am
Zegler performing “Man of the House”:
Posted: 10/25/24 at 12:04am
DTLI Consensus: Sam Gold’s bold, bonkers retelling of the Shakespeare tragedy for the TikTok generation makes for a somewhat coherent evening at the theatre.
7 mixed (including the NYT), 6 positive, 5 negative.
https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/romeo-juliet/#google_vignette
Posted: 10/25/24 at 12:05am
I don't disagree with the NYT review, and I was surprised at how...magnanimous? Jesse Green was in mostly allowing for the fact that the primary purpose of this was to get younger theater goers more interested in Shakespeare. Similar for the Guardian review--they were also spot on with how Shakespeare's verse could feel a bit clumsy in most of the cast with the exception of Kit Connor.
Posted: 10/25/24 at 2:13am
chrishuyen said: "I don't disagree with the NYT review, and I was surprised at how...magnanimous? Jesse Green was in mostly allowing for the fact that the primary purpose of this was to get younger theater goers more interested in Shakespeare. Similar for the Guardian review--they were also spot on with how Shakespeare's verse could feel a bit clumsy in most of the cast with the exception of Kit Connor."
Do people still care what Jesse Green has to say?
