Romeo and Juliet has been on my mind lately, ever since I saw the lovely made-in-Chicago indie film Ghostlight earlier this summer. In that movie, Dan, a middle-aged construction worker (Keith Kupferer), tries to work out his grief around a family tragedy by joining a community theater production of R and J. I came away from the film realizing that, though Shakespeare’s story about “a pair of star-cross’d lovers” focuses on the impetuousness and passion of youth, loss and grieving remain large and unfathomable throughout our lives. And Shakespeare’s lovers didn’t have the supportive newfound community Dan encounters in the movie.
Romeo and Juliet
Through 8/4: Fri-Sat 6 PM, Sun 2 PM; 7/5-7/7, Gross Park, 2708 W. Lawrence; 7/12-7/14, Lincoln Park, Stockton and Dickens (near the Hans Christian Andersen statue); 7/19-7/21, Kelvyn Park, 4438 W. Wrightwood; 7/26-7/28, Nichols Park, 1355 E. 53rd Street; 8/2-8/4, Touhy Park, 7348 N. Paulina Avenue; midsommerflight.comfree (donations accepted)
The 16th-century tale is in the local theatrical zeitgeist this year. We’ve already seen Chicago Shakespeare’s family oriented Short Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet and PrideArts’s Shakespeare’s R & J this year. Oak Park Festival Theatre opens their 49th season outdoors in downtown Austin Gardens with the tragedy this weekend.
Midsommer Flight is also in on the doomed-young-lovers act this summer with their free touring production under the guidance of founding artistic director Beth Wolf. Presented through the city’s Night Out in the Parks program, the show, like all of Midsommer Flight’s work, uses natural light and no amplification. Minimal but efficient props and set pieces by Isa Noe, along with Rachel M. Sypniewski’s cunning costumes, hint at the time period (the play is presumed to be set in “fair Verona” in the 14th or 15th century), but also provide a sense of timelessness.
Last Sunday at Chicago Women’s Park and Garden, the soughing wind in the trees occasionally made some of the dialogue a little hard to hear. But it hardly mattered, because this stripped-down but heartfelt take on the familiar tale translates well even if you don’t catch every line. Ebby Offord as Juliet and Faiz Siddique as Romeo burn with urgency. (I always forget how very few times the young lovers meet before their dream world collapses around them.) They wisely don’t play them as doomed kids, but as young people convinced that they can make it work if they just love each other enough. (Which is, of course, the real tragedy of the story—love can’t always survive hate, at least not in this world.)
Also on Sunday, the balcony scene was accompanied by a fortuitous accompaniment of barking dogs on the street outside the park, reinforcing Juliet’s admonition to her swain that, “The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art, If any of my kinsmen find thee here.” By the end of the show, the opening strains of the courtyard concert next door at the Glessner House gave a grace note to the sorrow of the no-longer-feuding Capulets and Montagues.
Offord and Siddique, appropriately, are the heart of the show, but the folly of the adults surrounding the young lovers also comes through in the performances of Laura Resinger’s Lady Capulet (rather more fearsome than other interpretations I’ve seen); the scattered bawdy antics of the Nurse (Kristen Alesia) and her addled serving man, Peter (Zach Bloomfield); and the just-this-side-of-smug Friar Laurence (Joe Zarrow). The latter is slightly less creepy than in other interpretations I’ve seen, largely because Wolf’s streamlined adaptation (just under two intermissionless hours) cuts the moment when he abandons the newly awakened Juliet in the tomb alongside her dead husband and would-be suitor Paris (Brandon Beach).
Among the younger set, Haven A.J. Crawley’s Mercutio is fiery and heartbreaking, and Génesis Sánchez’s Benvolio provides a good-hearted voice of reason. Simple musical accompaniment (score by Jack Morsovillo) features snare drum and guitar, which added aural resonance. Despite some of the challenges of the natural and urban surroundings, Midsommer Flight’s Romeo and Juliet is a lovely (and free!) opportunity to see a familiar story in sturdy hands.
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