'Romeo and Juliet': Star-Crossed Lovers Run Into Star-Crossed Acting Styles

If music be the food of love, play on.

Oops.  Wrong play.  But the opening line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night would well serve the production of Romeo and Juliet now in previews at the Richard Rodgers Theater.

Under David Leveaux’s somewhat muddy direction, with an odd mix of contemporary and classical elements, this Romeo and Juliet is suffused with music—a veritable soundtrack, much of it percussive or electronic (two musicians are credited in the program—cellist Tahirah Whittington and percussionist David Van Tieghem).  At times, the music does complement the onstage proceedings, especially in the scene at the Capulets’ party where the title characters meet and fall in love; at other times it is merely intrusive. 

Actually, the music should emanate from the performance of Shakespeare’s words, which is where the actors come in. 

Romeo is played by Orlando Bloom, who is perhaps best known for portraying the elf prince Legolas in the Lord of the Rings films.  Although he hasn’t done a lot of stage work, it is clear he has been well trained in classical performance in his native England.  Even from the balcony, where I sat, I had no trouble at all hearing or understanding him. 

The only other actor whose diction is a match for the language of the play is Chuck Cooper as Lord Capulet.  Cooper, a terrific actor so brilliant in last year’s revival of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, has my early nod for a Tony nomination. The play boasts fine performances, as well, by Brent Carver as Friar Laurence and Jayne Houdyshell as Nurse. 

Playing Juliet is Condola Rashad, a wonderfully naturalistic actress.  I have found her to be pitch perfect in everything I’ve seen her in:  from Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, to Lydia R. Diamond’s Stick Fly, to Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful. Here, she has the character of Juliet down pat, but, unfortunately, she hasn’t quite mastered the particular vocal demands of Shakespearean English.

Some early buzz about the production has suggested a lack of romantic or sexual spark between the star-crossed actors.  I would argue, however, that it is their acting styles that are distancing them. Bloom’s performance—even with its expressive physicality (he comes riding in on a motorcycle--really?!!)—is in the classical mode, while Rashad’s is driven by her emotional understanding of the character.  I hasten to add that both may grow in their roles over time. 

Getting back to the production itself, Mr. Leveaux, the director, has opted for a quasi-West Side Story approach, with gang-like behavior across racial lines (the Montagues are white; the Capulets are black.)  Yet this modern take comes and goes, and we seem to shuffle back and forth in time, depending on the scene and the performances.

All in all, I would say that despite its flaws, this Romeo and Juliet is worth the visit for some very strong performances by the supporting cast, and for the opportunity to see a full-scale Broadway production (the last time was over 25 years ago) of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays. Take the teenagers!  

      

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'The Trip To Bountiful': A Revival To Cherish For Bringing Cicely Tyson Back to the Stage

Cicely Tyson and Condola Rashad in 'The Trip To Bountiful'

Music suffuses the endearing new revival of The Trip To Bountiful, on view at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre and starring the indomitable Cicely Tyson as Carrie Watts, an elderly widow bound and determined to escape her stultifying urban existence and return to live out her days at her family home in rural Texas. 

The music comes from many sources:  from Perry Como crooning on the radio, from the chirping of the redbirds and scissortails that floods Mrs. Watts with joyful memories, and, most of all, from the hymns she loves to sing and in which she finds great strength and comfort.  (I don’t know whether this is occurring at every performance, but at the one I attended, many in the audience joined Ms. Tyson in singing one of the hymns; far from distracting, it felt like a spontaneous and transcendent moment.)

Playwright Horton Foote originally wrote The Trip to Bountiful as a teleplay in 1953, during the Golden Age of Television when first-rate theatrical dramas and live televised productions were standard fare. The original TV production starred Lillian Gish as Mrs. Watts, and the iconic actress took the play to Broadway shortly thereafter. Over the years there have been several theatrical revivals, along with a movie (1985) that garnered an Academy Award for Geraldine Page.  Later, in 2006, Lois Smith won a  Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of the same character in an off-Broadway production at the Signature Theatre Company. 

In short, Mrs. Watts has been very kind to actresses of a certain age.  At the time she entered into their lives, Ms. Gish was 60, Ms. Page was 61, and Ms. Smith was 76.  But Ms. Tyson beats them all.  At what has been widely reported to be the age of 88, she grabs hold of the character, the stage, and our hearts from start to end. 

The plot of The Trip to Bountiful is a simple one (the title pretty much says it all), and the play would be most resistant to any sort of fussy production.  Thankfully, Michael Wilson, who has had a lot of experience directing Mr. Foote’s plays, helms the evening with a gentle hand.  The story unfolds without a lot of sentimentality and avoids melodrama during several potentially melodramatic scenes. 

Mrs. Watts feels trapped, living as she does with her hapless son Ludie (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and sharp-tongued daughter-in-law Jessie Mae (Vanessa Williams) in a two-room flat in Houston.  The only thing to do is to make her escape and return to her family home in Bountiful, where she intends to live with a childhood friend. 

Along the way, she shares a bus ride and swaps stories and hymns with a young woman (Condola Rashad), loses her handbag with her pension check inside, and spends the night in a bus station just a few miles from her destination. 

It is not difficult to imagine a version of the play in which the final miles of Mrs. Watts’s journey are made in a pine box, but this is an ending that Foote wisely stayed away from in the writing. Instead, he sends a kind-hearted sheriff (Tom Wopat), who has been dispatched to find Mrs. Watts and reunite her with her family. 
  

It is the sheriff who drives her the rest of the way to Bountiful, where she finds her childhood friend has passed away, her family home is in ruin, and the world of her dreams has long since returned to nature.  Still, it is enough that she has made the journey, and she is able to conjure up a sense of satisfaction and inner peace.  When Ludie and Jessie Mae show up, she is content to return with them to Houston, carrying Bountiful inside her. 

The acting company does a fine job all around, mostly performing roles that are only modestly defined and that serve largely as foils to the central character.  Mr. Gooding, who is making his professional stage debut with this production, does seem somewhat ill-at-ease onstage, and when I saw him, he was losing his voice.  Yet I found him to be most appropriately cast in the role of the befuddled Ludie, trying to little avail to be the peacemaker in the constant struggle between his mother and wife.   

The more experienced Ms. Williams, as the self-centered and mean-spirited Jessie Mae, and Ms. Rashad and Mr. Wopat make the most of their parts.  

But, of course, it is Ms. Tyson who carries the play. She is in turn charming, devilish, forthright, sweet, stubborn—and always fascinating to watch.  Whether she is 79, as her official biography has it, or 88, as The New York Times has declared, It hardly seems to matter.  To quote Shakespeare, writing of Cleopatra:  “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.” 

Brava, Ms. Tyson, and yet again brava!!!

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