It's probably the greatest love story ever written. It's surely the play that more people know, or know a line from, than any other. It's "Romeo and Juliet," of course, and it receives a rich, charming, delightful production from the Black Rep. It opened Friday at the Grandel Theatre, where it will run through Feb. 14.
Directed by Chris Anthony, and set in 1968 in what the program describes as "Verona (A city much like St. Louis)," the Shakespeare classic adopts a few 20th-century touches like casual garb designed by Jennifer (JC) Krajicek, often a sharp and fascinating contrast to the Shakespearean language of the late 16th century. Equally striking, but more entertaining, are several dance scenes, including a glorious rendition of the Madison of the 1960s, led by Drummond Crenshaw and Linda Kennedy, with outstanding choreography by Heather Beal. And young Chauncy Thomas stopped the show with his rendition of Louis Jordan's 1945 song hit, "Cal'donia (What makes your big head so hard?)" It was even more successful because he sang it to Andrea Frye, who played the Nurse with a lusty, bawdy quality rarely seen in the part. Frye showed a humorous, dynamic quality all night, then went to the opposite end of the emotional continuum with a breaking, heart-breaking quality when she says to Juliet, "We are undone," as she discovers that the deaths are piling up too fast to count.
Jim Burwinkel's set, simple backdrops on a bare stage, adapts to the many scene changes with little effort except for that needed from the audience.
With a cast of 18, the Black Rep used actors across its many years, ranging from founder Ron Himes (Capulet), and company veterans like Erik Kilpatrick (Montague), Kennedy (Lady Montague, an anonymous party guest and a single, brilliant scene as an uncredited apothecary), Crenshaw (the Prince of Verona) and Robert A. Mitchell (the Friar). All were solid under Anthony's careful, well-paced direction.
Younger generation standouts included Sharisa Whatley (Juliet), Khnemu Menu-Ra (Benvolio), Patrese D. McClain (Lady Montague), Nic Few (a studly Romeo), Tim Norman (Tybalt), Jonathan Ellison (Balthasar) and Sean Walton (Paris). Most of them played as friends, relatives and hangers-on to the rival Capulet and Montague families, and the fight scenes were excellent, with credit to Andrew Keller as fight choreographer and Mitchell as fight captain.
It's a fine production by the company, a little slower in the second act as the action lessens and as Shakespeare showed symptoms of the well-known playwrights' malady of struggling to bring everything to a well-constructed conclusion. As always, Shakespeare has something to entertain and teach everyone, from the display of the English language as the beautiful thing it can be, to showing off that, sadly, the human condition does not change, and serving, along then way, as the inspiration for plays and movies that have entertained us for centuries.
"Romeo and Juliet," by the St. Louis Black Repertory Company; at the Grandel Theatre through Feb. 14
–Joe