Summary 
Both modernized (opening and closing scenes) and set in 16th-century Italy (the long middle acts) to illustrate the timelessness of the romance and tragedy. Color-blind casting (Juliet and her mother are dark-skinned, as is Romeo's father). Interesting concepts add little but do not distract from the tale of a youthful romance that results in tragedy but ends a blood feud. Lukewarm tragedy: little focus, less chemistry.
Design
Directed by Des McAnuff. Costumes by Paul Tazewell. Set by Heidi Ettinger. Lights by Robert Thomson. Sound by Todd Charlton. Music by Michael Roth. Fights by Steve Rankin. Choreographed by Kelly Devine.
Cast
Gareth Potter (Romeo), Nikki M. James (Juliet), Peter Donaldson (Friar Laurence), Evan Buliung (Mercutio), Lucy Peacock (Nurse), Timothy D. Stickney (Tybalt), Victor Ertmanis (Capulet), Sophia Walker (Lady Capulet), Roy Lewis (Montague), Irene Poole (Lady Montague), Gordon S. Miller (Benvolio), Steven Sutcliffe (Paris).
Analysis
New Stratford artistic director Des McAnuff modernizes Romeo and Juliet to contemporary times to underscore the timelessness of the doomed romance. A tolling bell begins the production within a tranquil plaza - café tables with table cloths, metal chairs, a large awning, a waiter and waitress - with nearby Montagues led by Benvolio wearing a crucifix around his neck. A huge full moon looms upstage and visible onstage are a young pregnant mother pushing a baby carriage and a limping elderly gentleman with a cane and a cigar ambling past a parked moped. The situation becomes dangerous when jeans-clad Capulets arrive via motorcycle, led by dread-locked Tybalt in a pin-striped suit. A confrontation erupts into a brawl with stray gunshots striking the baby carriage; the Prince appears in the gallery above and halts the mayhem with a spray of fire from an automatic rifle. After a tense moment, the unharmed child begins to cry and the Prince rebukes both families. The patriarchs are attired in suits, and a frail Lady Montague, in a black business suit, nearly faints and must be assisted from the stage.
The contemporary tone continues through the early scenes of the production, with schoolgirls wearing backpacks and fussing with IPods strolling by as Capulet and Paris are served espresso at a café. A boyish, blond-haired Romeo in jeans and a denim jacket makes his initial appearance casually flipping a coin - a silently ominous commentary on fate and fortune - and Mercutio throws a switchblade knife point first into the stage to underscore his "good heart's depression." McAnuff furthers the portentous sense with other, equally subtle stage pictures: the Friar solemnly placies a wreath of flowers upon an unnamed grave, and later, a sobbing Romeo sprawls on his back in the Friar's chamber, his arms splayed like Christ upon the cross. McAnuff also employs color-blind casting, a waif-like Juliet in pink jeans and blouse is dark-complected (an ironic "snowy white dove") as are her mother and Tybalt as well as Romeo's father, and Romeo and the rest of the Montagues are fair-complected, the family blood feud decidedly not of a racial nature.
When Romeo and the Montague gang dress in 16th-century doublet and hose for their crashing of the Capulet masque costume-party, they make crude teenaged-boy remarks about their codpieces, but the Renaissance-style costuming - in place for the moment when Juliet and Romeo first meet - remains as if the whole world has traveled backward in time with their meeting. Couples move in slow pirouette dances around Romeo and Juliet, attired in brocade and velvet in shades of brown, amber, and orange, while the Capulet family stands silhouetted upstage against a crimson backdrop.
Despite a titillating publicity poster for the production that features Juliet embracing Romeo from behind, both of them apparently nude, little onstage chemistry exists between the two performers, and they share little stage time. The balcony scene plays without a sense of yearning passion and worse, looks for cheap laughs, with Romeo first scaring Juliet into a schoolgirl scream, then the Nurse frightening him into a schoolgirl yelp himself. The callow behavior detracts from any sense of deep and developing love, as does the portrayal of Juliet as less a young woman and more a barely teenaged child, high-pitched in voice and childlike in demeanor, skipping the perimeter of her chamber or stubbornly staring at a sun dial while impatiently waiting for the Nurse to return. In contrast to the amount of skin displayed in the poster, the ensuing wedding scene is passionless and strikingly tame: Romeo hurries from their marriage bed nearly fully clothed, and Juliet wears a grandmotherly night dress that covers her entire figure. The scene plays with little affection and no emotion.
McAnuff maintains a quick pace - action takes place in the balcony while the set below is changed, and vice versa - and at one point Juliet rises upon a bench from a center stage trap before Romeo and Mercutio have a chance to exit. A few moments work well - the Nurse dances jubilantly with Juliet onstage while the Friar kneels and prays with Romeo above in the balcony; Paris, amid thunder and lightning, drops flower petals from the balcony down upon Juliet's tomb - and some do not - Mercutio pretends to discover a cucumber beneath the Nurse's skirts - but the production's most effective scene does not involve Romeo and Juliet together: the clashes with Tybalt are portrayed with sweaty desperation, percussive music playing throughout, and a harsh chord sounds as Mercutio is mortally wounded. When Romeo in his rage defeats Tybalt, he holds his new cousin's head up and slits his throat. Romeo's anguished realization at his doom is searing: "O, I am Fortune's fool!" Spot lit alone in the balcony above, Romeo watches the Prince announce his banishment as the production reaches interval.
The more mature supporting performances are strong, with comic touches from the Friar ("Holy St Francis!") and the Nurse nipping from her concealed flask or popping Romeo in the forehead with her fan providing contrast to the rollercoaster anger of Lord Capulet: Juliet's father alternates between seething fury and shouted rage, tossing his daughter's bedclothes and gesturing threateningly until she prostrates herself, more in fear than obedience.
The finale packs the requisite dramatic punch, played in a dark and echoing chamber with burial platforms stretching far upstage from Juliet. The production suddenly returns to modern attire as the lovers pass - the police officers in modern uniforms, a gravedigger in blue jeans, the Prince in a power suit, the lovers' parents in raincoats - to bookend their love story in a contemporary framework. The poignant final lines - "all are punished" - are delivered by the Friar, but oddly, this half-modernized, almost-racially-cast Romeo and Juliet achieves its most stirring on-stage moment only when the two young lead performers return to the stage for their hand-in-hand curtain call, accompanied by The Cure's "Just Like Heaven." The song and its plaintive tone captures the essence of Romeo and Juliet in a way the production sadly does not.