Mia Katigbak (standing), plays the Nurse, and Dorcas Leung is as Juliet, in the National Asian American Theatre Company’s Romeo and Juliet at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater.
The National Asian American Theatre Company’s Romeo and Juliet may just go down as the season’s most misdirected production. Employing Hansol Jung’s modern-verse adaptation as its text, codirectors Jung and Dustin Wills no doubt intended to revamp Shakespeare’s tragedy by leaning into its comedy to point up the darker aspects. But what one gets is a travesty of the play.
While Jung is generally faithful to the original text, there are signs from the get-go that she won’t abide by the usual rules. It starts with Capulet’s servants shouting out bawdy comments during the traditional Prologue. Although the first one that wafts over the footlights is relatively tame—“Gregory, I swear, we can’t be no-one’s suckers”—it triggers a volley of crude sexual puns that may be common in Shakespeare but are out of synch with the sublime language of the opening sonnet.
Daniel Liu (left), as the servant Peter, and Jose Game as Potboy, in a highly charged moment in Romeo and Juliet. Photographs by Julieta Cervantes.
Jung’s adaptation fares better as the play proper picks up. After all, isn’t the servant Sampson’s opening line, “Tempt me and I strike like lightning” more accessible to today’s theatergoer than Shakespeare’s “Gregory, on my word we’ll not carry coals?” But when Jung then substitutes “cat” for “dog” a few lines later when Shakespeare’s specifies a canine in the original—“A dog of the house of Montague moves me”—one begins to see why translations are such tricky endeavors.
It’s difficult to fathom the why and wherefore for many choices. And the more one compares them to Shakespeare’s original, the more they seem informed by Jung’s artistic intuition. Take the “Queen Mab” speech, in which Jung changes “Tickling a parson’s nose as ’a’ lies asleep” to the more familiar and trimmer “Tickles a preacher’s nose . . .” Whereas many of her adaptations hold up to scrutiny, Jung sometimes tosses out a pearl. Case in point: In the balcony scene, she replaces the poetic “Romeo doff thy name ...” to the very prosaic “Romeo throw thy name ...” Inevitably, one must decide to surrender or not to Jung’s reworking. But before that moment arrives, it’s certainly an invigorating experience to compare and contrast Jung’s new-fangled Romeo and Juliet with Shakespeare’s.
“While [adaptor Hansol] Jung is generally faithful to the original text, there are signs from the get-go that she won’t abide by the usual rules.”
This production’s comic tone is fully realized in Joey Moro’s loud lighting, Mariko Ohigashi’s hybrid costumes that meld the Elizabethan and modern era, and Junghyun Georgia Lee’s set, which comes replete with trapdoors that allow actors to enter and exit in jack-in-the-box fashion at pivotal moments.
The physical comedy, even though well-executed by the troupe, becomes distracting after the ribald and buoyant Mercutio is killed by Tybalt. The comic tone of the play abruptly changes. Jung and Wills might argue that their inventive gags that are peppered throughout their production shine new light on the tragedy, but one would be hard pressed to point out a single scene that is improved by jesting after Mercutio dies.
The dominant scenic element is a huge white curtain that bisects the stage that is raised and lowered to meet the dramatic moment. On the periphery of the stage, Lee provides a collection of dilapidated vintage objects (a hobby horse, a worn suitcase, an umbrella stand) that suggest that something is out of joint in fair Verona.
Major Curda plays Romeo and Dorcas Leung is Juliet in a modern-verse adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy.
Audience members watch the show seated in traverse to allow everybody to be close to the action. One gets an intimate theatrical experience from this staging, which compensates for many of the production’s shortcomings.
In spite of the directorial missteps, the acting could not be better. While Major Curda and Dorcas Leung, as Romeo and Juliet, will hardly persuade anybody that they are teenagers or are ferociously infatuated with each other, they do sparkle in their own funny way. They play the balcony scene from juxtaposed trap doors on stage, with Juliet speaking her “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?“ soliloquy to one of her fuzzy sheep slippers.
Mia Katigbak as Juliet’s Nurse shows the requisite earthiness. Her advice to Juliet, which can be so right or so devastatingly wrong, illustrates how good intentions can backfire in tragic ways. Last but not least, there’s the amazing Daniel Liu, in the multiple roles of Chorus, Peter, and Lady Capulet. Liu’s mix of serious acting and tomfoolery is highly watchable from the moment he insinuates himself into the Chorus to the moment he impersonates Lady Capulet at the corpse-strewn finale.
Presented in partnership with Two River Theater, this Romeo and Juliet might be a misfire for its directors, but it still is a step forward for NAATCO, which continues to push the theatrical envelope by not only embracing European classics but performing in them.
The National Asian American Theater Company’s Romeo and Juliet runs at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater (136 W. 13th St.) through June 3. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. on Monday through Saturday. For tickets and information, visit www.naatco.org or ovationtix.com.
Playwright: William Shakespeare, adapted by Hansol Jung
Direction: Jung and Dustin Wills
Sets: Junghyun Georgia Lee
Costumes: Mariko Ohigashi
Lighting: Joey Moro
Sound: Megum Katayama
