Romeo and Juliet

At the opening curtain, flashing traffic dividers split Brian Sidney Bembridge’s grand, gloomy set in half; within minutes, feuding Montagues and Capulets tear them apart. Aussie director Edwards signals early on that her take on the teen-romance tragedy will be rousing. Interspersed with sumptuously staged tableaus, such as the Capulet party where Romeo (Jeff Lillico) switches his affections from Rosaline to Juliet (Joy Farmer-Clary) or the stirring last moments of Mercutio (Ariel Shafir), exquisite supporting performances wring out the rich intimations of Shakespeare’s text. As choleric Capulet shouting down his wayward daughter, John Judd suggests he’s ready for Lear; Ora Jones’s Nurse is spirited and ribald without ever dipping into cartoon; Shafir plays Mercutio as an Elizabethan Jon Stewart, always a couple of steps ahead of, and apart from, his surroundings.

Edwards’s production would be a definitive version of this oft-staged play if it weren’t for a pair of notable absences: Lillico and Farmer-Clary offer lackluster young lovers. This Romeo seems distressingly perky, more likely to be Juliet’s dormitory resident advisor than her world-destroying passion. Poised and lovely in the first half, Farmer-Clary resorts to a good deal of hoarse shouting in the second. Romeo and Juliet has long been accused of focusing on the wrong male character, its true tragic death coming in the third act. This production proves no counterexample; riveting up to intermission, and never less than stylish afterward, it starts losing steam once Mercutio’s fatally scratched.

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