Summary 
Well-directed presentation of the romantic tragedy, an outdoor production played indoors due to rain, with the affluent feuding families depicted as superficial and morally corrupted. The hatred and violence inherent in the feud overwhelms the blossoming romance between an energetic and expressive Romeo and a demure but resolute Juliet. Memorable flourishes and a moving finale, despite an overhasty pace in the second act.
Design
Directed by Patrick O'Gara. Costumes by Deborah Rooney. Set and lights by John Stark. Sound by David Zerlin.
Cast
Casondra Campbell (Juliet), Darrel Ford (Capulet), Keytha Graves (Nurse), Ted deChatelet (Tybalt), Brian Herriott (Mercutio), David Kortemeier (Friar Lawrence), Robert Kropf (Romeo), Philip Thompson (Paris), Patrice Wilson (Lady Capulet), Randy Reinholz (Benvolio), Steve Young (Escalus), Jason Maher (Montague/Friar John), Meredith Templeton (Lady Montague/Server).
Analysis
Director Patrick O'Gara centers this production of Romeo and Juliet around the tension of opposing forces, including the conspicuous dichotomies of life and death, peace and war, and young and old. O'Gara also explores the underlying theme of emotional poverty within material wealth, especially through set design. This production's public Verona features a stone bench at stage-right, a marble pillar and a fountain at stage left, and marble walls adorned with lion head fountains. Stairways lead away from the stage to landings with more stairs leading back to either side of the balcony. The entire marble facade, however, is worn and discolored, cracked and splitting in some places and completely fallen away in others. Comparatively dismal and ugly terra cotta brickwork is revealed beneath the broken marble, just as hatred and violence will be revealed beneath the feuding families' surface wealth.
The affluence of the Capulets is apparent in the first act, when the stage is continually adorned, between scenes, for the family's banquet. First, before Juliet's initial appearance in 1.3, long crimson tapestries are unfurled from the gallery to cover the cracked marble of the facade, and the bench is given an ornate cushion and the fountain a decorative cover. Before 1.4, festive garland is strung across the gallery and additional benches are carried onstage, and finally, before the masque begins in 1.5, candelabra with burning candles are brought in to flank the gallery. Robert Kropf as Romeo is then seen brooding alone on the balcony, melancholy and lovesick. His first sighting of Juliet is strikingly staged. All the revelers below, except Juliet, suddenly stop and freeze in their motions, ghostly white masks held up to conceal their faces, and the entire stage darkens except for spotlights upon Romeo and Juliet. The grandeur of the Capulet home is dimmed into relative non-existence as Romeo and Juliet's sudden love springs to life. Their love for each other is depicted as transcending opulence as well as their family's blood-feud.
O'Gara's stopped-motion technique is employed once more during the masque, again to dramatic effect. After Tybalt's rage against Romeo's intrusion is quelled - by a slap from Lord Capulet - the stage is again darkened, the party-goers once more frozen, their faces concealed behind the masks. The expressionless masks are solid white, eerily visible even in darkness, their bloodless non-color indicative of their wearers' lack of passion. Romeo and Juliet speak with each other for the first time, gracefully twirling together in an emotionally charged circle at center stage. Romeo is attired in lively green velvet, and Juliet wears a splendid pink-and-white gown. The dialogue, delivered well by Kropf and Casondra Campbell, is enhanced by the beauty of their gentle dance together and by the earlier spectacle of their first seeing each other.
The 2.2 balcony scene presents more pure interaction between Kropf and Campbell. Kropf is an energetic and athletic Romeo, leaping atop the pillar with quick agility to stand and (attempt to) swear to the moon. For his goodnight kiss he literally climbs the wall, a lion head fountain providing a surprising foothold. Campbell's demure and dreamy Juliet is more mature than Kropf's nearly frantic Romeo, and after their kiss she sends him off-stage and through the audience "with heavy looks." When she returns to the balcony to call him back, it is with merely a hissing whisper, but Kropf sprints back through the audience, leaps onstage, and hurls himself at the opposite wall, scaling it for another kiss, much to the delight of the audience. Allowed more physical interaction of this kind, Kropf and Campbell could have developed even deeper chemistry, and the tragic finale would have become much more devastating. Romeo and Juliet's passion, after all, is the essence of the play, but in this production the passion is for the most part created by directorial flourish and dramatic staging rather than by chemistry between the actors.
The first half of the production concludes upon a grimly unsettling moment with the 2.6 wedding scene. Romeo and Juliet kneel spot lit before Friar Lawrence at center stage to take their vows. Surrounding the nuptials, above them in the gallery and at either side of the stage, are scenes of violence: freeze-framed, spot-lit pairs of men from the feuding families battle with knives and swords. Romeo and Juliet are consequently presented in their marriage as being literally surrounded by brutality and bloodshed.
Kropf's Romeo is less convincing when not dashingly athletic or engagingly energetic. After the 3.1 fight, he languishes within the Friar's cell, clad only in black tights. His unwillingness to even move and his dalliance with suicide seem unwarranted and too immature, as is his peevish pounding of the floor ("you cannot know") in frustration over the Friar's supposed lack of understanding. Kropf is effective, however, in relating Romeo's affection for the Friar, whom he embraces imploringly from his knees, and especially in his depiction of Romeo's recovery of spirit: Kropf finally stands in a spotlight and faces the audience, staring beyond the seats with new conviction, as the stage darkens around him. A moment later, Juliet appears behind him, kneeling upon their wedding bed, which emerges from the darkness beneath the balcony and slides out next to him. In an instant, the Friar's cell becomes the couple's wedding-night chamber. Thus, O'Gara intimates that Romeo earns and deserves Juliet's love only in his mature resolve. Their wedding night, however, is over as soon as it has begun, with barely an embrace, and Kropf and Campbell again have little opportunity to physically interact.
Juliet is also depicted as experiencing a crisis of confidence. She shuns the Nurse - first by rejecting her presence, then by turning away a good-night kiss - and kneels upon her bed, nervously clutching the potion from Friar Lawrence. Juliet doubts herself, speaking quickly and with obvious fear, but once she utters Romeo's name aloud she becomes noticeably dreamy again, and she drinks the potion. The portrayal of Juliet's liberation from her family and the feud - through her love for Romeo - is the most memorable sequence of the production. Once she is found "dead," Capulet, Paris, Peter, and a Capulet cousin lift her from her bed, but once they do, Juliet stands on her own and dances slowly away from them within a spotlight. The men pantomime carrying her corpse away, her body bound, while Juliet dances across the stage, her spirit free. As the men walk out slowly through the audience stage-left, Juliet dances up the stairs and into the gallery, and the set is changed from her bedchamber to the Capulet burial vault. As the pallbearers return through the audience stage right and re-enter the stage, Juliet's spectral dance brings her down the right-side stairs and her dance concludes upon the slab in the vault. The Capulets hold their arms out as if she has always been there, and Juliet, with her dreamy smile, falls backward; the Capulet men catch her and lay her "to rest."
The youth of Verona are depicted with vibrant color and high-spirits, in contrast to a drab and droll older generation. The 3.1 melee flares in sweltering heat and is presented as a frenetic pandemonium of clashing swords and knives, with Balthasar clad in purple, Benvolio in red, and Tybalt in orange. Only Mercutio wears muted colors (gray and black). Mercutio is characterized as being emotionally isolated from his mates, and he is frequently blocked away from groups and gatherings. The Queen Mab speech is delivered with such intensity that Mercutio becomes mesmerized to the point that his friends become alarmed, and near its end he is so impassioned he seems on the verge of violence. Romeo must physically pull him back to reality. Mercutio's affection for Romeo is given subtle, albeit unequivocal, amplification, thereby casting wonder as to the nature of his true feelings for Romeo. For example, his derision of Romeo's love for Rosaline is not light-hearted banter but bitter, almost jealous scorn, and his subsequent taunting of Romeo in 2.4 is harsh and accusatory, especially in comparison to the playful antics of Benvolio and Balthasar, who roll about the stage in a mock-embrace. His physical ardor for Romeo becomes evident after he is mortally wounded by Tybalt: Mercutio clutches Romeo's face and kisses him full on the mouth before staggering offstage to die. This intimation of deeper feelings between Romeo and Mercutio (at least on the latter's part) is intriguing, however subtle.
O'Gara's intended contrast of the passion of youth with the stolidity of age is weakened, ironically, by strong portrayals of the older characters. The portrayal of the Nurse is a particular stand-out. Her prattling delivery and dotty demeanor combine with superb comic timing to create a vivid characterization that steals scene after scene and, due to the lack of chemistry between Romeo and Juliet, dominates the first half of the production. Lord Capulet, during Juliet's 3.4 rejection of Paris, progresses believably from a tender and compassionate father to an angrily affronted patriarch to an unreasonable and violent tyrant. He concludes the scene by shoving the Nurse aside and slapping Juliet across the face.
The earnest but ineffectual Friar Lawrence is depicted with an abundance of dry humor. His frequent postulates ("they stumble that run fast," "women may fall, when there's no strength in men") are also said aloud half-mockingly by Romeo, who has apparently heard the "wisdoms" many times before. The Friar reacts with wry fondness to Romeo, and he reveals, despite his weary axioms, an acute awareness of his young friend's feelings. For instance, his comment that "young men's love then lies/Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes" concludes with a long pause and a glance at Romeo's crotch before the word "eyes" is spoken.
O'Gara briskly paces the concluding scenes. He emphasizes the swiftness of events and multiplying misfortunes, rather than lingering on moments as he had done with earlier sequences. This approach works well in evoking the rapidity of the tragedy, but it deprives the play of some of its inherent power. For example, Romeo's dying kiss with Juliet is followed immediately, almost comically, by the entrance of the Friar, well before the tragic nature of the double-suicide has had a chance to be fully absorbed. Nevertheless, this production is effective drama, due especially to directorial prowess and a slew of rich supporting performances.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.12, No.4, Fall 1994.