The powers of restraint and limitation can raise astounding things from language, when corseted by strict meter and rhyme. Likewise can these forces rouse stupefying fervor from young human beings, when their fancies are prohibited by the jerks in charge. Perhaps the most classic results of such restrictions, both verbal and social, can be found in the epic infatuations and couplets of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It’s now on stage in a very classical production, directed by Kristan Robinson for the Players’ Ring in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that disdains gimmicks and revels in Shakespeare’s language and the vicissitudes of the human voice.
As the star-crossed lovers, Tana Sirois and Camden Brown balance youth and knowledge appealingly, and draw impressive arcs of their learning curves as things start to get messy. Sirois, particularly, is a marvelously sensitive and intelligent young actress, whose work I make a point of following, and it’s a treat to see her with such gorgeous and timeless words on her lips. Her Juliet has a mighty emotional scope and dynamism; she beautifully mines the role’s perch between girlhood and womanhood. Innocence yields nicely to knowing laughter in the presence of her sometimes bawdy nurse (the very entertaining Maisie Keith Daly) and her voice pulls the Bard’s iambs through myriad ranges and tenors to reveal newly her broadened experiences of being thwarted.
If the more obvious half of R&J’s appeal lies in the woozy language of its romantic duets, much of the other half can be found in its cocky (in more than the one sense) humor, and the pivotal deliveries are pure pleasure. As Mercutio, Dan Beaulieu tempers the lovers’ gravitas with innuendo as gleeful as you could hope, and Daly as Juliet’s nurse does a great routine with the monologue on weaning Juliet from her “sacks.” Both actors also have great physical presences, what with Beaulieu’s giddy dirty gesturing and Daly’s comical limp.
Other strong performances include those of Lord Capulet (Tim Robinson), who does a fine job straddling righteous paternalism and something more sympathetic, and his Lady (Colleen A. Madden), who has something going on in her eyes that seems always capable of turning the other way. As Friar Lawrence, Gary Locke mixes up some fine rapport with Romeo, and Tom Morin’s Prince (sumptuously dressed in creams and trimmed with white fur by Barbara Newton) gives the neutral monarch suitably elegant locution and a manner that moves easily from impatience with the strife to empathy for its sources.
Robinson’s staging and pacing give good kinetic extravagance to the male buddy’s banter, and there’s no screwing around choreographer Leslie Pasternack’s sword fights, which are vigorous and unflinching. Particularly and acutely fierce is Dylan Schwartz-Wallach’s youthful Tybalt, who smolders rather terrifyingly both between and during parries.
While the cardinal tones of romance, comedy, and conflict of Robinson’s R&J are taut and engaging, the play’s connective tissue — the expository scenes — drag somewhat. Go ahead, Friar, you might feel like urging. Just give up that vial! And like the exposition, the setting of fair Verona is itself curiously void of character. Painted beams and some minimal tapestries seem rather rote, more decorative than evocative of a true setting, and what’s usually the most significant set-piece of this play — Juliet’s balcony — is just a long, barred rail that is moved forward and back by stage-hands. The lovers’ scenes thus suffer from a certain lack of verticality; the fine passions of Sirois and Brown have little spatial counterpart to the ascents, swoons, and plunges of their fleet courtship and nuptials.
