A star-crossed Romeo and Juliet

A theatre company's reach should always exceed its grasp, I suppose - but that gap looms particularly large in the Happy Medium Theatre's current production of Romeo and Juliet (at left, which runs through August 25 at the BCA).  I have to be honest, this is a long haul of a show, because in their eagerness to jump into the big leagues, the Happy Medium folks seem to have hoped that the sheer greatness of this play might somehow sustain them, even though they lacked the casting or production resources to do it justice.  They did have local star Paula Plum on board as director, which I too thought would have helped - only Plum flounders quite a bit here, so in the end her presence is a wash.

Still, you only learn how to act Shakespeare by acting it, and even this counts at least as a first step in most of this cast's Shakespearean training, so you may want to support their work (just as long as you know what you're getting into).  To Plum's credit, she has cut the play aggressively, and generally well (aside from one odd scene where we see Lady Cap at the crock pot, and Lord Cap in an apron); her version, though it nods inconclusively toward racial issues, is basically traditional, and keeps moving, no matter what.  And Angie Jepson's fight direction (given the tight confines of this stage, she has chosen to work with daggers) is generally strong.

But as a student acting experience, I think the lesson to be learned here is: don't act Shakespeare this way.  Try not to shout, particularly in small spaces, and try to think of your characterization as an organic whole, with an internal coherence, rather than as a string of "bits" that will pull you through your scenes.  Avoid  "going for it," whenever you can; aim for subtlety as much as possible.

There are a few bright spots in the acting: Michael Underhill comes through, as he usually does, as Tybalt, and June Kfoury has what it takes to make a memorable Nurse (with more careful direction, she might have made it).  Likewise Joey Pelletier has his moments as Mercutio, but often falls prey to the show's gonzo tendencies; meanwhile William Schuller makes an effectively haunting Apothecary, and Sharon Squires conveys a memorable dignity as Lady (and Lord!) Montague, but somehow misses any of that poisonous ancient grudge everybody's talking about.  Alas, elsewhere inexperience and miscasting tended to overwhelm good intentions in this star-crossed show.

Boston Ballet's Romeo and Juliet

Misa Kuranaga and Pavel Gurevitch in Romeo and Juliet.  Photo(s): Rosalie O'Connor

We're awash in "translated" Shakespeare right now - we've seen at least five operas and ballets based on the Bard in the past few months, and there are more on the way. Few will surpass the John Cranko/Sergei Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet, however, which runs through this weekend at the Opera House in a rich and rewarding production from Boston Ballet.  Prokofiev's score is itself a wonder; it's one of the few story-ballet scores that are of serious musical interest - which is all the more striking because it's not just a series of divertissements, but is crammed with narrative and emotional detail.  And Cranko's choreography is justly celebrated for matching it toe-to-toe, if you will, in the plot department, while also brilliantly evoking its doomy mood; this is a Romeo and Juliet in which the mutual hatred of the Capulets and the Montagues operates as implacable curse (their final reconciliation is cut), and the deaths of the principals seem inevitable from the start.  Indeed, together Cranko and Prokofiev lift the story ballet to the level of tragedy; and fans of the Bard (as well as ballet) will want to catch the production because it offers a rare chance to see onstage what postmodern theatre productions of R&J usually cheat us of - rousing, convincing fights and dances, and a passionate vision of the physical grace of youth.

Which is what keeps this version, despite its grim undertow, always full of life (and love).  And Boston Ballet knows just how to do it up right (we've seen this production before, and just a few years ago - but I was happy to drink it all in again).  Susan Benson's opulent costumes and set (dominated by a looming central arch) tint the Renaissance with a shadow of the Middle Ages, and the painterly glow of Christopher Dennis's lighting seems to capture several different times of day and night.  Meanwhile, down in the pit, Jonathan McPhee delivered a generally gripping accompaniment (particularly strong where the building, dissonant chords which finally collapse in a deathly crash), although there were a few scrapes from both the strings and the horns at the top of their respective ranges.

Still, the Ballet Orchestra seemed to always be propelling the action, and indeed, the flow of the big crowd scenes are where Cranko's nearly cinematic choreographic sense is most in evidence. In this Verona, the corps is shaped and massed into a constantly engaging vision of a village on the move, and details "pop" in the background just when they should (when Tybalt is cut down, for instance, we immediately notice a horrified servant dashing off to tell the Capulets).  Interestingly, Cranko keeps the communal dances within a fairly circumscribed set of steps - it's when Romeo and Juliet are alone that he strikes out in creative ways to convey both the elation and the danger of their situation.  (The lovers leap into a series of strikingly original lifts in their first pas de deux - they're head over heels, after all - but as the walls of Verona close in around them, they also begin to drag each other down, literally.)

Luckily for us, the Ballet now has a deep enough bench of talent to convey both aspects of Cranko's vision.  On opening night, Nelson Madrigal took the role of Romeo - a part that with his ripe good looks he was born to play, and which by now he knows inside and out.  He still has a little trouble with his big double tours, but everything else is there, and emotionally the performance is beautifully transparent; he dashes about with a palpable romantic glow.  The big question in my mind about the production, frankly, was how Misa Kuranaga - always a technical marvel - would fare in the demanding dramatic role of Juliet.  And the answer is that she sails through it, convincingly conveying a specific personality through her impeccable technique.  By the finale, she has broken your heart. (I know that's a cliché, but sometimes clichés, like dreams, come true.)

Paulo Arrais as Mercutio.

There were more great performances around this central pair, however - in fact the evening was brimming with memorable turns.  Yury Yanowsky was once again an icily commanding Tybalt, who held the stage with a frighteningly bitter charisma.  Meanwhile Sabi Varga offered a surprisingly sympathetic turn as Paris, while Tai Jimenez stared down the crowd as an imposing Lady Capulet, and Boyko Dossev made a small miracle of the brief role of Friar Lawrence.  In the background of the crowd scenes, I also couldn't help but notice a convincing cameo from Paul Craig as a doomed Capulet, while Adiarys Almeida glittered later as a lightly sensual gypsy. (We already knew Almeida, like Kuranaga, could dance; now we know she can act, too).

But probably the big news of the night was Paulo Arrais's galvanic turn as Mercutio; this young dancer stole scene after scene from Madrigal - just as Mercutio should. But the surprise was not merely the happy wit and sexual fire Arrais brought to his early dances, but the poignant depth of his extended death scene.  I confess I always watch the Ballet's productions like a hawk for a sense of the ongoing development of its upcoming dancers. And the news from Romeo and Juliet is that Misa Kuranaga is now the Ballet's newest leading lady, and Paulo Arrais its freshest star.

Teaching the torches to burn bright

Nelson Madrigal and Larissa Ponomarenko leave the balcony behind. (Photos by Gene Schiavone.)

What the New Rep and the A.R.T. couldn't do, Boston Ballet has done triumphantly: they've brought Romeo and Juliet to Boston, in a production that includes not a word of Shakespeare, but somehow conveys his essence via Prokofiev's classic score, John Cranko's nearly-as-celebrated choreography, a rich, perceptive design from the National Ballet of Canada, and an all-but-ideal opening-night cast. The results, it's true, boasted no innovative insights into the tragic romance; no shocking new light was thrown on the Bard's star-crossed lovers. What transpired instead was the best kind of traditional reading: one informed by the accumulated knowledge of the past, staged perceptively and performed exquisitely. What was most striking, in fact, was how the performance functioned as well as drama as it did as dance. After such entertaining bagatelles as La Sylphide, Romeo and Juliet was a welcome reminder of the depth a 'story ballet' can really achieve; shorn of its swan-maidens and wicked witches, the form, it turns out, is up to the challenge of genuine tragedy.

Of course the ballet's triumph is largely due to Prokofiev's score, which rivals in its musical integrity Stravinsky's Firebird and Rite of Spring. Perhaps it's too bad Boston Ballet isn't using the composer's original version (Mark Morris is rumored to be planning a new production to it), but Cranko's insightful choreography is certainly worth preserving on its own, and he perforce worked from the 1940 revision (which finally silenced Prokofiev's state critics and brought the work success). Even in this reworking, however, it's clear how radically Prokofiev departed from the tradition of sweet divertissements favored by Tchaikovsky: if you're looking for an adorable pas de cinq or "tea" followed by "coffee," forget it; Prokofiev hews closely to Shakespeare's drama, and Cranko follows in his toe shoes, as it were. Indeed, it takes awhile for any pure dance to break out of Cranko's subtly rendered pageant; even the famous "Dance of the Knights," Prokofiev's grim accompaniment to the Capulets' masque, here is rendered as a kind of a swaying parade.

But don't worry, Cranko's just saving it up for his eponymous lovers, whom he graces with one inventive pas de deux after another - in which deep back bends and astonishing over-the-shoulder lifts underline the fact that these two are literally head-over-heels. The balcony scene - in which Romeo, thankfully, draws Juliet down to the dance floor - was pure rapture; Larissa Ponomarenko was in luminous form, and was partnered with sympathetic passion by Nelson Madrigal. Madrigal was less convincing in a trio with Mercutio (Reyneris Reyes) and Benvolio (Gabor Kapin ) - in which none had quite the lift to pull off a series of triple spins - but was elsewhere the perfect Romeo, easily shifting from melancholy to romantic transport and back.

The corps looked just as good, in a supple series of groupings that, like so much of the evening, toed a fine line between drama and dance. One sunny highlight was the towering Bo Busby's joie de vivre as the Carnival King(at left) - which was more than matched in dark intensity by Yury Yanowsky's brutal turn as Tybalt; indeed, Yanowsky probably delivered one of the strongest dramatic performances I've ever seen from a dancer (its only recent rival would be Kathleen Breen Combes's imperious performance in Giselle). Praise should also be showered on Susan Benson's versatile production design (and opulent costumes, which matched perfectly the autumnal colors of the set) and particularly Christopher Dennis' stunning lighting - which accurately conjured both night and noon, and hinted at the fragile atmosphere of such late nineteenth-century painters as Alma-Tadema. Indeed, the design was successfully poised between a number of cultural touchstones, somehow honoring the Italian landscape, the British visual tradition, and even the Slavic foundation of Prokofiev's score. This was one case in which design and dance partnered one another impeccably, with the happy (or perhaps unhappy!) result being a closer evocation of the Shakespeare's haunted, doomy mood than I've ever seen in a conventional stage version. This is a production not simply for balletomanes, but for bardolators as well.