[In the following review, Shurgot states that the massive sets in the Seattle Repertory Theatre's production of Romeo and Juliet left “no room for subtlety in staging or lighting.”]

In Sharon Ott's Romeo and Juliet at Seattle Repertory Theatre, huge, thick black panels, reaching floor to ceiling, textured to resemble the rough stone walls of medieval buildings, dominated the stage. Initially these panels defined the exterior walls of two castles—those of Capulet and Montague—and dark, forbidding streets lighting the way to dusty death. Gregorian chant floated above the stage as young men darted from the dark streets, flashing swords at their enemies. As they tangled and then quickly fled, grieving figures in black, carrying umbrellas, entered from the opposing castles and stopped center stage while bells from within tolled not only for the plague that foils Friar Laurence's plan but also for the generations that rely on violence to settle their quarrels. The oppressive darkness of this forbidding place, with no room for subtlety in staging or lighting, warned spectators to be wary and precluded dramatic tension. Love was already doomed, and the Prologue's reference to “fair Verona” sounded terribly ironic.

Ott captured vividly the generational gap that is central to Shakespeare's tragedy. Kevin Loomis is a large man who physically dominated his wife and especially his much shorter daughter. In 1.3, as she combed Juliet's hair, Suzanne Bouchard as Lady Capulet, who is barely twice her daughter's age, wore a gorgeous red gown and stiff head dress that resembled a cobra's head. She pulled on Juliet's hair several times while combing it as Juliet fidgeted under her mother's control. Later, in 3.5, Capulet, far older than Lady Capulet and quite intimidating, raged at both his wife and daughter, hurling bedding and furniture around the room and finally Lady Capulet herself onto the bed. Lady Capulet cowered before him. Her exit lines to Juliet, “Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word. / Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee,” as she limped off stage terrified Juliet and left her completely alone with her father's rage. Juliet's willingness to risk her life for love seemed here perfectly reasonable. Laura Kenny as the Nurse was robust and charming, but her jollity paled next to Capulet's enraged patriarchy.

The young men were exuberant, quick-witted, and flashy. Benvolio knew that Romeo was in love with love, not with Rosaline, and enjoyed mocking his affections. Ott complicated this male society by playing Mercutio as gay and desiring Romeo and thus jealous of Romeo's infatuation with Rosaline and later with Juliet. His “Queen Mab” speech in 1.4, which he spoke at lightning speed while galloping around the stage, ended with his lying prostrate over Romeo and moving his hips sexually on “This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, / That presses them and learns them first to bear, / Making them women of good carriage.” While waiting for Romeo to appear after the party in 2.1, Mercutio grabbed his crotch as he conjured Romeo to appear by Rosaline's “fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, / And the demesnes that there adjacent lie”; and he relished the pronunciation of his sexual puns, especially the ambiguity of “in his mistress' name / I conjure only but to raise up him” (italics added). The very vibrancy of the younger generation, plus the explicit and implicit sexual freedom they desired, contrasted vividly with the staid and, except for the Nurse's witty exchanges with Mercutio and Benvolio in 2.4, repressed emotions of the older generation.

As vividly realized as the characters were, they were not the centerpieces of this production. The huge panels moved forward and back and side to side, to create different acting sites—the outer walls of the opposing castles, Juliet's bedroom, the central piazza where Tybalt fights and dies, the Montagues' festive party, the exterior walls and balcony of Montague's castle, Friar Laurence's cell, and finally the tomb in act five—this massive set dominated the production; one sensed that spectators were watching the monstrous walls move, rather than hearing the play's poetry. The balcony scene required Romeo to climb a sheer stone wall and hang on precariously while behind Juliet loomed another equally high wall. The massive walls, dim lighting, and fog that occasionally shrouded the set—resembling the lighting and visual effects of several of Orson Welles's Shakespeare films—suggested dark forces conspiring against the young lovers, whose poetry, even in their initial tender encounter, could not match the physical domination of the set.

The production was not without humor or compelling verse-speaking. Ted D'Arms, a jolly Friar Tuck, was astonished at Romeo's request for a hurried marriage; his explosive “Holy St. Francis, what a change is here!” was hilarious. When the Nurse entered 2.4 looking for Romeo, she wore a head dress with a fifteen-foot train that Benvolio and Mercutio wrapped around her head, blinding her; Peter took nearly a minute to unwrap her, during which she became increasingly agitated, sputtering her lines. Her order to Peter, “Before, and apace,” led them initially in circles and then finally off stage—slowly. Juliet's clock speech opening 2.5, set within the towering walls of her bedroom, demonstrated Cynthia Boorujy's precise pronunciation and studied rhythm that captured clearly the energy of a young woman awaiting news of her lover. When the Nurse arrived, out of breath and still fussing with her head dress, Juliet, jumping nervously on her bed, drove the old woman to exasperation on “Henceforward do your messages yourself” before turning abruptly to Juliet to inquire of her going to “shrift.” The Nurse's sudden change in tone and demeanor was charming.

J. Allen Suddeth's staging of the fight in 3.1 clearly showed Romeo's guilty interference, even as he tried desperately to prevent violence. Equally clear was the sexual passion in Juliet as she awaited the Nurse in 3.2, and Boorhjy's ability to shift emotions rapidly to the despair in her long speech “Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” Romeo protested far too much in his encounter with Friar Laurence in 3.3, yet his suicidal angst seemed fitting for a very young man governed by anger, guilt, and desperate longing. One sensed in Ginty's performance exactly why young people would rely on elders for help, thus emphasizing the tragedy of both their rash actions and their ill-starred journey to the tomb. As Juliet drank the potion and fell on her bed, it descended through a trap door, as if her bed of love had become a bier summoned into the earth. The doubling of Allen Gilmore as Montague and the apothecary suggested the elder generation's agency in the deaths of their children, and his slinking away after selling the potion to Romeo anticipated Friar Laurence, another apothecary who escapes punishment, fleeing the tomb lest his agency in the deaths of these impetuous yet innocent lovers be revealed.

In a contemporary updating of the final act, Ott introduced guns, glancing perhaps at Baz Luhrmann's film and creating a contemporary parable of the play's violence. Shrouded in fog, with the huge walls of the hateful castles looming behind them, Romeo and Juliet lay in a final embrace upon the tomb—lovers who, like death, will never abandon their beloved. Figures draped in black, carrying umbrellas as in the opening scene, walked slowly from opposite sides of the stage. Montague and Capulet weakly reached for each other's hands, which came together over the dead bodies of their children, like Friar Laurence's letter, too late.