Theater review
Steamy, dangerous and violent, Joe Calarco’s “Shakespeare’s R&J” re-imagines the familiar tale of fair Verona as a secret act of love played out by four boys at a Catholic boarding school.
Since the play was first produced by the Alliance Theatre in 2003, the world has changed. And so apparently has Calarco.
Writing on his blog last year, the playwright said he had been hesitant to describe his all-male adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” as a gay play when it first appeared in 1998. He feared that politicization would diminish its larger ideas: that art transforms, that love is surprising and mysterious, that Shakespeare is Protean.
But as he revised the script recently, he did a bit of soul-searching and felt that it was time to be a little less protective of his baby, which is about “what it means to be a man” and “what it means to be in love.”
“Guess what? It is also about what it means to be gay,” he wrote of the play, which is now getting a beautiful and deeply felt production at Atlanta’s Fabrefaction Theatre Conservatory.
Directed by Brian Clowdus and featuring an ensemble of four gifted performers, this treatment imbues the tale with an astonishing eroticism without ever revealing anything more than an unbuttoned shirt. As the passion between Kyle Brumley’s Juliet and Brian Hatch’s Romeo escalates, they engage in a dance of tenderness and desire that is deeper and more intense any heterosexual “R&J” I have ever seen. Yet there is nothing lurid or unseemly about it.
Working with his design team, Clowdus creates a world that is visceral and hypnotic. Dressed in costume designer Christina Hoff's preppy coats and ties, four boys recite Latin with military precision. Soon they discover a Shakespeare tome wrapped in crimson and hidden away in a coffin-like box. As they begin to read, they are absorbed into the story. But are they performing a play? Are they dreaming? Or do they become the Capulets and the Montagues? And what happens when it's all over? Do they go back to their old selves, or are they changed forever?
Those are some of the thoughts that will occur to audience members. And therein lies the beauty of this telling.
Brumley’s Juliet is gentle and moony without being fey, while Hatch’s Romeo is on fire with electricity and lust. As the characters known as Student 3 and Student 4, Justin Walker and Chase Steven Anderson play a variety of roles. Both are excellent, and just as Walker brings gravitas to the part of Friar Laurence, Anderson gets to yuk it up as the Nurse. He’s delightful.
Lauren Rondone’s set efficiently compresses the action into a fixed space, creating a handsome “V” that detracts from the pitfalls of the long rectangular stage. Kevin Frazier washes it all in sumptuous reds and purples. And Jarrett Heatherly’s sound design is appropriate to the ebb and flow of time and emotion, although some phrases are bit repetitive.
In his revised script, Calarco has introduced some language from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that heightens the sense of dreaminess and adolescent mischief. And Clowdus creates a kind of choreopoem that’s heavy on raw energy — the ball scene happens in a disco! — yet there are some lovely interludes where characters simply sit at the sidelines, observing the carnage and the chaos.
It’s all very eloquent, and I don’t blame Calarco a bit for originally downplaying the gayness of the material, which in hindsight was more than prescient. “Romeo and Juliet” has the timeswept patina of a museum piece; Calarco brings it out into gorgeous light of this moment, our moment. As evidenced here, it is haunting and exceptionally eloquent.
“Shakespeare’s R&J”
Grade: A-
8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. 3 p.m. Sundays. Through March 2. $18-$27. Fabrefaction Theatre Conservatory. 999 Brady Ave., Atlanta. 404-876-9468. fabrefaction.org
Bottom line: A spellbinding treatment of the classic.
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