As the sun sets in Central Park, the Delacorte Theater erupts with conflict. Along a giant rusted fence, there’s a group of protestors with a flag spray-painted with “Defund ICE.” There’s also a group of angered, authoritarian men dressed in black with shiny boots. This is Nueva Verona, on the Mexico-U.S. border, where director Saheem Ali has reset “Romeo and Juliet.”
I don’t shy away from a Shakespeare production with a new concept. My own teenage production of “Romeo and Juliet” had an unintelligible eclectic backdrop. Our “Much Ado About Nothing” was set in the Wild West. The girl playing Kate in “Taming of the Shrew” sang Miley Cyrus’ “I Can’t Be Tamed.” When you’re performing tales as old as time, it’s natural to want to bring something fresh to the table. Sometimes, that can be a fascinating reimagining, like the stunning revival of “Cats” on Broadway—now “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” ditching the literal cats and resetting the show in ballroom culture. Yet as this production of “Romeo and Juliet” attempts to make modern meaning of the tragedy, it ends up making no sense at all. The pieces are there, but together, they become a puzzle.
It’s not that there’s necessarily an inherent flaw to setting “Romeo and Juliet” at the Mexico-U.S. border. In fact, the show’s large gated set (designed by Maruti Evans), with an 18-foot-tall Virgin Mary and skeleton in the background, is quite visually stunning. Instead, what falters is the execution. We understand from the initial brawl that the conflict between Romeo and Juliet’s families is over immigration. Yet the inconsistencies pile up quickly after: the wall is the backdrop, not physically dividing anyone except for in the balcony scene; Romeo’s parents seem to have nothing to do with the conflict; the supposedly ICE-coded Capulets host the entire town in a beautifully costumed, colorful ball (design by Oana Botez); instead of the climactic latter half-brawl, the anti-ICE group protests peacefully, linking arms in front of the gate.
Ali intends to emphasize the differences between the Montagues and Capulets with a language barrier. This production is a bilingual one, where Romeo—pronounced Roméo here—switches effortlessly from English to Spanish (translations by Alfredo Michel Modenessi). At first, his moments in Spanish feel deliberate and inspired: when he’s overjoyed with love for Juliet, he can’t help but switch to his mother tongue; when he’s incredibly outraged, it’s Spanish that expresses his ire. As Romeo, Daniel Bravo Hernández handles these transitions with a youthful passion. Yet halfway through this production, the meaning is all lost: suddenly, there’s no way to track when or why he’s switching.
The two languages are also muddied in Juliet’s attempts to speak Spanish. In the beginning, Juliet (Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens) asks a servant to help clarify pronunciation for a Spanish word. This gives us a clue—even if her family is anti-immigrant, Juliet may be not. Yet suddenly, she’s nearly fluent when speaking to Romeo. Even if her Spanish doesn’t fly off her tongue the way it does for Romeo, she’s speaking paragraphs without much hesitation. Where did the girl who needed help with a single Spanish word go?
It’s, frankly, a bit of a mess, with the concept harder to understand than a non-Spanish speaker trying to understand the translation.
Yet it’s not all dark spots. While the production falls flat in its attempt to bring hot-button issues into the story, it succeeds in its small, fractured pieces. Its cast is strong; Caleb Joshua Eberhardt soars in Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech, and Deirdre O’Connell is charming and quippy as Juliet’s Nurse.
It also emphasizes how this lovers’ tragedy is inevitable. Through creepy animal-masked creatures who float on and off the stage, a set littered with graves, and an eerie sound design (by Mike Tracey), death is all around us in this production. These lovers feel younger and more naive than ever to think everything will work out with them, when death is so clearly present—haunting them, quite literally taking up the stage.
But just when we think we know how things will end, Ali flips tragedy on its head with an actual marriage. After the show’s bows, Francis Jue, who plays Friar Lawrence, marries a real couple on stage every night. All of a sudden, the whole theater is watching two people unite in the lights of Central Park. If this production succeeds in one thing, it’s to honor love and bring together a whole crowd together to celebrate it. If only it made any sense with the show that had just occurred.
How to See More Free Shakespeare in the Park
“Romeo and Juliet” (not actually titled Wokeo and Julieta, if you can believe it) closed this weekend. If you missed this production, don’t worry—there are more opportunities to see free Shakespeare in different parks this summer.
Julius Caesar
New York Classical Theatre quite literally takes its audience on a journey with its traveling production of “The Tragedy of Julius Casear.” The show uses what they call a Panoramic Theatre style, where the audience quite literally (physically) follows the show from scene to scene in different places in the park.
The last week of performances (through July 5th) begin at The Battery/Castle Clinton; you can reserve for free online.
Othello
Head up to Marcus Garvey Park for The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s “Othello,” starting this week on July 2nd. I absolutely love their productions and the atmosphere. You don’t need to do anything special to get tickets—just reserve for free online and head to the park a little before 8:30 p.m. to secure a spot.
The Winter’s Tale
The Public offers a second Shakespeare in the Park production this season with “The Winter’s Tale,” starting July 25th and running through August 23rd. You can get free tickets in five different ways: waiting in line at Central Park for noon distribution; waiting in line at Central Park in the cancellation line; waiting in line in a borough-specific location for noon distribution; trying your hand at an in-person lottery at The Public; entering the digital lottery on Today Tix.
Like 25 people from our area left the show pre-intermission, and while I did judge them for leaving mid-act, I also didn't think the bilingual conceit worked well enough to make up for that it also probably made this show way less accessible for the live Shakespeare virgins that Shakespeare in the Park is kind of for