The Good Olde Days before the Plague

Early in February of this year—while the news of the as-yet-unnamed novel coronavirus was growing more ominous by the day but before the Benighted States fully joined the frolicking—I planned and executed an awesome Shakestour, going to see ten plays (nine of them Shakespeare) on stage within a ten -day span. It was a road trip that took me from the Space Coast of Florida first to Atlanta, thence to D.C. and Stanton, Va., Baltimore, and Brooklyn. In précis, this was the itinerary:

1/30: Romeo and Juliet — Atlanta Shakespeare Company, Atlanta, Ga.
1/31:  Henry IV Part 1 — Brave Spirits Theatre, Arlington, Va.
2/1, matinee: Richard II — Brave Spirits
2/1, evening: Henry IV Part 2 — American Shakespeare Center (Actors' Renaissance), Stanton, Va.
2/2, matinee: Much Ado about Nothing — American Shakespeare Center
2/5: Measure for Measure — Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Baltimore, Md.
2/6: The Merry Wives of Windsor — Folger Shakespeare Theatre
2/7: Medea (or, Euripedes Off, a loose modern adaptation by Simon Stone) — Brooklyn Academy of Music
2/8, matinee: Timon of Athens — Theatre for a New Audience/Polansky Shakespeare Center
2/8, evening: Hamlet — St. Ann's Warehouse + Gate Theatre Dublin

For the nonce, Let me just say what a fan-fucking-tastic trip this was and how happy I am that I got to do it before the plague closed the theaters. Which is much. Much happy. So joy.

That out of the way: For the next little while on this blog, I'll be rummaging through my notes and memories of the various performances I saw... starting chronologically with:

Romeo and Juliet

Thursday, 2020 January 30

Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse/Atlanta Shakespeare Company. 

This was a preview; the show officially started the next night. 

 

Several interior spaces in the Shakespeare Tavern suggest an ongoing remodel. Will-Call is a table in the front corner of a 10m x15m space otherwise strewn with what look like church pews. After dispending my ticket, the Will-call staffer refers me to the gift shop behind me, which has a counter dispensing a modest selection of beers, wines, and themed cocktails; of the latter of which, purchasing a ‘Queen Mab’ is an immediate, inexorable need. I can’t swear to a recipe, but I do know Orangina was involved.

This room, too, looks a-tumult: the back half is furniture storage and untraversable; between that and the tiny cash register counter is a picayune gift shop: one small garment rack, a single shelf of books, and a few sundries. A classical guitarist is sitting in the corner of this room playing charming arrangements of 20th century standards (Henry Mancini’s ‘Days of Wine and Roses’) as well as some Bach pieces such as ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’ (come to think of it, also a pop standard!) and, more surprisingly, the epic fugue from the violin sonata in g, BWV 1001).

The moment I walk into the theater space proper I begin lamenting that Atlanta is so out-of-the-way for me—even if it’s one of the closest major cities in the country to the Space Coast. I mean, I haven’t even seen a production yet, but this concept—roughly approximating an Elizabethan theater space and adding supper and wine and ale—is fucking right. Unfortunately, this company does one play at a time for 3 weeks and 4 weekends; and as it seems pretty certain this is the only Shakespeare game in town (and seeing as the only close friend I had in Atlanta has moved cross-continent again), it seems unlikely I’ll be frequenting the Shakespeare Tavern on any more than major Shakestour excursions. Like this one.

The playhouse is set with tables and chairs as would be expected in any tavern, but the shape of the whole space is vaguely Blackfriars-y, with a thrust stage and a U-shaped balcony. At the back of the house is a cafeteria style kitchen where dinner is served: a few entrée options and a somewhat better selection of drink than was offered at the gift shop. I opt to have both entrée and drink in one package: Guinness.

About the play. Romeo and Juliet is not my favorite show. I am exactly the high school freshman Ehren Ziegler describes in his first ‘Chop Bard’ podcasts: forced to read R&J without sufficient inspiration in Mrs. Rita Benedetto’s freshman English class. Mrs. Benedetto was herself enthusiastic about Shakespeare and many other authors and works in the Western canon; but I daresay she lacked the spark of pedagogic skill to transmit that enthusiasm effectively to her charges. (Or I could have been a self-involved, 14-year-old shithead.) The same principle applied to Julius Caesar (sophomore year, Mr. Arthur Ostroff) and Macbeth (senior year, Ms. Victoria Denauris and Ms. Maryann Meehan). I did see the 2018 production of R&J at Shakespeare Festival St. Louis and I did not think too highly of it—but Fest staffer Colin assured me I was wrong. He was indeed affronted when I casually asked, in the admin trailer, after my first viewing of the show in Shakespeare Glen, ‘Does anybody really like this play?’

So here I am at the Tavern to determine: Do I actually dislike this play? For reasons I haven't quite been able to articulate? Have I let prejudice get in the way? Have I just not seen anyone do it justice?

The production opens without the famous prologetic sonnet:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Although these words are well known and may well be missed by folks familiar with the text, I have never understood how/why a chorus was ever necessary in this play. I mean, everybody knows it now, but writing a play for its first performances, why do you tell the audience four times in the first fourteen lines that both protagonists are going to die at the end?

My notes and the playbill remind me that Mercutio and Tybalt are both played by women (Kristin Storla and Mary Ruth Ralston, respectively), but I am embarrassed to admit I do not remember whether they are played as women. I am thinking not.

I had listened to several, though not all, of the Romeo and Juliet series of the Chop Bard podcast (the very first play Mr. Ziegler undertook to explicate back in 2009). Mr. Z posed some interesting questions regarding line readings. For example: when Romeo asks Friar Lawrence in 2.3 to ‘consent to marry us to-day’, the friar immediately and strongly objects that Romeo is a fickle child who cannot be serious about his love, sith yesterday he was googly-eyed for Rosaline. Yet the friar soon consents, citing as his rationale that such a marriage has potential for making peace between the feuding Capulet and Montague clans. But when does this rationale occur to Friar Lawrence? Not until the moment he appears to change his mind and consent to perform the rite? Or does the sweet promise of peace dawn earlier on the friar, and he merely withholds his consent at first—either because he believes the risks outweigh the potential benefits, or in order to sound Romeo to gauge the authenticity of his love? The latter idea—forcing an argument before acting as one was inclined to act in the first place—has an analog in Measure for Measure (the Duke’s elaborate ruse wthat constitutes the entire fifth act), and probably others in the canon.

Here in Atlanta, the friar (Paul Hester) telegraphs a light bulb going on over his head just before consenting. It could not be clearer that he sincerely just now thought: ‘Ooh, peace, yummy.’ I think this plays fine, but is not quite as interesting as the outlined alternatives. One could argue that, Lawrence being a Franciscan, the potential benefits of a new Capulet-Montague affiance-alliance should be immediately obvious.

Mr. Ziegler also interrogated the questionable (non-existent?) stage justification for Tybalt’s immediate flight upon stabbing Mercutio and his re-entry minutes later. I mean, the flight could be, simply, 'Holy shit I'm in trouble now'; but why then the reëntrance? The text is not help; and our Atlantans likewise glossed over it without attempt at explanation.

Lastly, Mr. Ziegler takes great pains to point out how very like a light romantic comedy the first two acts of the play can seem. Certainly, there are ominous notes (see above re the funeral prologue), but there is also a great deal of good humor. Atlanta Shakespeare realizes this with great efficacy. The first half is marvelously funny. The director and company take advantage of every opportunity for laughs. The nurse (Gina Rickicki) is particularly great here. I must admit her repetition of the vaguely bawdy ‘Thou wilt fall backward’ story—

For even the day before, she broke her brow:
And then my husband--God be with his soul!
A’ was a merry man--took up the child:
‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying and said ‘Ay.’
To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it: ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said ‘Ay.’

—does not quite land. Granted, I am far from certain how one makes that exchange land, except perhaps with elaborate stage impatience on the part of Lady Capulet. Here, at least, Atlanta Shakes has Juliet (Antonia LaChé) reciting the story’s quoted lines in chorus with her nurse: a neat shorthand for their great familiarity and affection.

Many bits in this production feel rushed and/or like they have not honed the way to get the meaning across; which seems par for a first performance before the public. Mercutio, who is otherwise very manic, raunchy, and funny, suffers extensively of ‘The hell he say?’, in part because the role consists so thickly in double-entendres that are simply gone from the language.

The Capulet-Tybalt confrontation on the borders of the Capulet party (1.4) is very spicy. I wonder if it is an involuntary function of a woman playing Tybalt or whether Ms. Ralston is simply tuned in, but Tybalt here seems less dastardly than he is often played.

But if Capulet (Vinnie Mascola) is casually violent to Tybalt in the party scene, he is terrifying in the betrothal scene. The role itself is patently harsh in his treatment of the recalcitrant Juliet; but Mr. Mascola unleashed a physical fury that truly startled the audience—not just me; I could not help notice others react with gasps and sitting up straight. Surely the cast practiced this stage violence, but the way he manhandled and threw both Juliet and the nurse... yes, I repeat, terrifying. Which is another way of saying that the contrast between the comic tone of the first act and the tragic tone of the second was stark: night and day.

In the play as published, Romeo has ~617 lines and Juliet ~542. Although I would have had to boost a prompt book, I wager this production excised far more material from Romeo’s (Joshua Goodridge) part than Juliet’s: her role felt like the point of the play. (Which is a good thing, cause Romeo a bitch.) Ms. LaChé is very effective in conveying her emotional journey, though I might argue that journey reaches its climax too soon (leave it alone); by the time we get to 4.3 and Juliet’s last major soliloquy, the play itself gets to feeling a bit monotonous—poor Juliet had to reach high dudgeon-cum-histrionics early in Act II and sustain it at an extreme emotional pitch for longer than felt comfortable, at least for this solitary audience member. I need to read the play anew but I have a feeling the fault here is Shakespeare’s, not Ms. LaChé’s.

Mr. Goodridge was far more problematic as Romeo. He felt like he seldom if ever made Shakespeare’s words his own. Halfway through the play I realized it was, in fact, a more fundamental issue than that: he just was not articulating clearly as an actor must do. Mr. Goodridge, a physically beautiful young man who is otherwise a pleasure to watch, could totes use a speech coach.

One other nit to pick: The Nurse’s “He is dead” entrance at 3.2 was wrenchingly problematic. At this point in the play the nurse has already executed one protracted, purposed stalling—she delays the news of Romeo’s marriage plans, explicitly to tease and punish Juliet for talking shit about her, the nurse’s, age and feebleness. She is doing the same obnoxious stalling here: can she be punishing Juliet again in withholding the name of the murthered as well as the murtherer? No, this is far too cold and cruel: the only thing she could be punishing Juliet for is betrothing the murtherer of her kinsman in the first place. This is a tough scene and it cannot be played with the remotest semblance of malice. The nurse needs to be literally at wit’s end. Frantic or frazzled. The technique Ms. Rickicki deploys here—looking spooked and speaking very quietly and slowly and with uncharacteristically flat affect—is not a believable species of distraction. I think she would do better to be manic, e.g., coming in and immediately finding trivial chores that she needs to do right the hell now, and that is why she does not properly respond to Juliet’s questioning.

With all those individual pros and cons out of the way, I return to my initial, nagging question: Do I dislike Romeo and Juliet? I am pleased to report Atlanta Shakespeare has made the answer a hearty NOPE.