Summary 
Handsomely mounted and traditional production features excellent Renaissance costumes within an Italian courtyard, and is clearly spoken and finely performed, with memorably strong portrayals of Mercutio and the Nurse. The lead roles lack teenaged urgency and rebellion, the performers more mature and worldly, and while their romance is effectively staged and dramatic, the tragic conclusion loses the emotional intensity of the star-cross'd children driven to suicide.
Design
Directed by Mark Lamos. Set by Michael Yeargan. Lights by Rui Rita. Costumes by Candice Donnelly. Sound by Scott Stauffer. Choreography by Rachel Rockwell.
Cast
Robert Petkoff (Mercutio), Carman Lacivita (Romeo), Julia Coffey (Juliet), Peggy Roeder (Nurse), Mike Nussbaum (Friar Laurence), Susan Hart (Lady Capulet), Michael Polak (Tybalt), Steve Hendrickson (Lord Capulet), Brian Hamman (Benvolio), David Lively (Lord Montague), Susan Wands (Lady Montague), Nick Sandys (Prince Escalus/Apothecary), John Hoogenakker (Paris).
Analysis
Guest director Mark Lamos presents a traditional Romeo and Juliet at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The 16th-century style Italian staging is sparse, the wrought iron almost skeletal in appearance, a contrast to the lushly detailed costuming, an eye-pleasing palette of bright colors and array of textured fabrics that seem heavy and less than comfortable in the supposed Mediterranean heat. Less traditional is the portrayal of Juliet and Romeo, the textual star-cross'd lovers of the ages of thirteen and sixteen, respectively. Lamos' stars are Carman Lacivita, a dashing and swarthy leading man who seems to be in his late twenties, and Julia Coffey as a smart and sophisticated Juliet, also deep in her twenties. The two performers share some fine chemistry onstage, and Lamos highlights their budding romance within the context of the age-old feud, but these are not children and the production therefore loses its themes of youthful puppy love and teenaged rebellion against parents, society, and tradition. Lacivita's Romeo is more a cocksure Mediterranean Don Juan than a love-struck and poetic teenager, and similarly, Coffey's elegantly refined Juliet seems a long way from a tragically smitten thirteen-year-old.
Lamos' approach is painterly, a well-posed series of stage pictures with the text clear and well-spoken by the cast. Juliet's balcony, a Rapunzel-like window high above the stage, provides Lacivita ample opportunity to proclaim his love to the stars and for Coffey to look ravishingly down upon him while wistfully bemoaning his heritage. The emotional effect of the by-the-books approach is less than powerful, with the declarations and proclamations lacking the intensity and urgency of youth. This Romeo and Juliet seem as though they should simply marry and settle down, and they do not exude the fear and restlessness of young children defying their parents and friends in their relationship. The words are poetic and emotional, but the tragic sense is diminished, especially in the crucial final moments.
Robert Petkoff's Mercutio, an exuberant and verbose clown, provides the production with a stirring jolt of theatricality. The animated friend of Romeo prances and prowls with muscular ease across the stage, an entertaining and immensely likeable contrast to the romantic-doldrum despondency of Lacivita's comparatively comatose Romeo. Petkoff, whose Romantic-poet portrayal of Hamlet for the company in 1996, then known as Shakespeare Repertory, was a similar breath of fresh air, elevates the production as well as the sweltering characters around him. His murder at the hands of Tybalt - in this production less a catalyst than a prancing and sneaky villain - is crushingly devastating for Romeo, in ways the audience can intuit thanks to Petkoff's mercurial portrayal. In contrast, Lacivita's Romeo seems a little less emotional and a little less sincere. Similarly, Peggy Roeder's effusive Nurse, huffing and puffing and panting and exclaiming, is such a whirlwind of impassioned exclamations and fervid pontifications that she overwhelms Coffey's faraway dreamy and tenderly beautiful Juliet. Roeder's Nurse, in a fully realized characterization that is both aching and joyous, displays more child-like exuberance and teenaged silliness than her ward of much less than half her age. These strong supporting performances do not so much as overwhelm the surprisingly mature and less-than-zealous Romeo and Juliet, as make one wish for a younger, wilder, more rebellious pair of teenaged lovers. A wan Friar is played as something of comic relief, especially in his inexplicable desertion of Juliet within the crypt, and Juliet's tyrannical father is portrayed with a memorable mean-streak that teeters uncomfortably - but interestingly - on the edge between demanding and controlling, and emotionally as well as physically abusive.