For some 400 years, on stages throughout the world, two of William Shakespeare's most famous families - the Capulets and the Montagues - have been, not unlike West Virginia's Hatfields and McCoys, a-feudin', a-fussin' and a-fightin' (or, in the case of "Romeo and Juliet," a-fencin'). But the root cause of the conflict has always been something of a gray area.
In Charles Morey's newly mounted version of the centuries-old classic, the murky shades of gray are clearly black and white - literally. In a bold and even risky move, he has cast the Juliet and the Capulets as white, and Romeo and his Montague kinfolk as black.Shakespeare's dialogue is virtually unchanged (and - no - Pioneer Theatre Company did not add the salacious Mercutio's bawdy language in scene three of Act Two, when he lecherously chides Juliet's nurse), and there is nothing racial within the text of the play itself. What Morey has done is merely drawn the line separating the two families more clearly.
And - in an era when many are questioning the whys and where-fores of the senseless conflict and racial hatred in Bosnia - the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet's ill-fated love certainly puts such heart-wrenching situations in a much more intimate perspective.
Morey's cast, especially the leads, is superb.
Wendy Kaplan is terrific as the spunky, impetuous Juliet and Oliver Barrero is equally excellent as Romeo, full of youthful, anxious passion.
Dion Graham, seen last season as Cory in PTC's production of "Fences," gives us a Mercutio who is cocky and comically cynical, even in the throes of death, and Mary E. Baird is right on target as the coarse-talking Nurse, one of Shakespeare's immortal comic characters. (In a play where a half-dozen people are dead in the space of barely five days, the comedy relief is welcome indeed.)
Three longtime PTC favorites - Richard Mathews, Robert Peterson and Anne Stewart Mark - have key roles in the production: Mathews as the peaceable Friar Laurence, whose well-intentioned plans come to a tragic climax; Peterson as Juliet's moody father, and Mark as the temperamental Lady Capulet.
Guest artist Chris Hietikko is also fine in the pivotal role of hot-tempered Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, who is slain by Romeo in a duel.
PTC intern Trevor Black portrays Juliet's officially betrothed groom-to-be, Paris, and Christopher Mixon is Escalus, Prince of Verona.
Rounding out the large ensemble in somewhat lesser roles are Gregory Simmons as Benvolio, one of Romeo's buddies; Mark Larson as Peter, the Nurse's servant, and Thomas E. Jacobsen as Friar John, whose failure to deliver a letter to exiled Romeo in Mantua leads to the young lovers' unnecessary demise.
Director Morey has set this version of "Romeo and Juliet" in the early 1800s rather than the more traditional late 1500s, allowing costumer Carol Wells-Day to dress the performers in colorful 19th-century attire. (This also eliminates the need for codpieces on the men - one item of Elizabethan apparel that incensed one Deseret News reader when the Utah Shake-spearean Festival mounted "Romeo and Juliet" in 1990. But the cocky strutting and gesturing, also a key aspect of Elizabethan humor, is intact.)
Gary M. English's scenery is fairly simple and subtle - an open courtyard in Verona flanked by the Capulets' famous balcony on one side and stately arches on the other. Other set-pieces glide smoothly on and off as needed - a bed for Juliet's bedchamber, a table with candles and a large cabinet for the Friar's church and an imposing stone catafalque in the Capulet family crypt for the final scene.
Augmenting this is Peter L. Willardson's lighting, with the large, cloudy backdrop continually changing from day to night and to day again as events quickly shift from a Sunday morning street brawl to the dark, foreboding Thursday evening in the gloomy crypt.
PTC's resident musical director, James Prigmore, has written an original background score that adds to the play's emotional intensity, and fight director David Boushey has choreographed the brawls and fencing with his usual expertise.
- Sensitivity rating: Contains some bawdy Elizabethan humor; some people may be offended - but shouldn't be - by the biracial casting.