Arts

Kit Connor of “Heartstopper” and Rachel Zegler are appealing as the young lovers, but also lost in an aggressively buzzy production that neglects the feast of Shakespeare’s words and characters.

A few blocks from the new, extremely loud and ultimately tiresome Romeo + Juliet on Broadway—the word “and” clearly now deemed unacceptably square and boring (Circle in the Square, booking through Feb. 16, 2025)—there exists a genuinely original take on Shakespeare’s classic love story.

As & Juliet’s marketing states, it poses the simple question: “But what if Juliet didn’t die?” Indeed, in a funny Instagram skit, the stars of & Juliet recently popped down to Circle in the Square to see Rachel Zegler who plays Juliet in the new production, and posed that question to her. Zegler, who must die in the traditional way in her show, seemed more thrilled by the alternative idea of Juliet “living her best life in Paris.”

The fact that both young lovers do still die is the most traditional thing in Romeo + Juliet, or R + J as it’s also being sold as—with Zegler playing the model tragic character for her Maria in West Side Story, opposite Kit Connor (Heartstopper) as Romeo.

Walking into the auditorium, the effect is pulsing, lights-a-go-go nightclub with music blasting (the show features music by Jack Antonoff, as sung by Zegler and others), and a stage with a shopping cart filled with colorful furry toy animals. One such massive teddy bear presides over the main body of the theater placed on a ledge (the design is by dots).

Of course, Shakespeare is malleable, and open to all kinds of often exciting and fresh interpretation and reinterpretation. This is a boldly modern production squarely aimed at a Gen Z audience—at least in its aesthetics and choice of leads.

But take away the bells and whistles—and why on earth Juliet is singing pop songs—and the same basic questions recur for anything wanting an audience: What are we watching? What are we hearing? Whatever demographic you’re aiming for, whatever new messages you are trying to imbue, a skein of sense and commitment to coherence is necessary, especially if staying close to Shakespeare’s text. These are words that can only be rushed at and played with if you know what you’re rushing at and playing with.

Director Sam Gold, a master of staging-daring (he oversaw Fun Home in the same space in 2015, winning a Tony Award that year), certainly supplies an undecorated running around when just some stillness and quiet, some dwelling on words, would be welcome.

The actors are dressed in modish contemporary clothing. The vibe is main-dish-Euphoria with Bard-on-the-side, and as much focus on movement and dance (overseen by Sonya Tayeh) as the text. A diverse cast of characters charge up and down the theater’s many entrances and exits, head into the rafters, and generally throw themselves with around with a spry fluidity.

The actors, all individually announced with their character names at the outset, are playing multiple characters—apart from Connor and Zegler—and the fact they are playing multiple characters becomes confusing.

The excellent Gabby Beans, Tony-nominated for The Skin of Our Teeth, is Mercutio, The Friar and Prince (and, at one point to laughter, tells us she has returned to playing the Friar)—and is a standout deliverer of Shakespeare’s text; Tommy Dorfman is both Tybalt and the Nurse, Solá Fádìran as Capulet and Lady Capulet, Gían Pérez as Samson, Peter, and a swaggering Paris, and so on.

On a mostly bare stage with no sense of place, and only glinting suggestions of who is related to who, this R + J—even if you know the play—is an off-putting game of wait-who’s-that-again, overlaid with a collective state of aggressive ennui as if everyone really just wants a fight.

This sense of chaos leaves a lot for Connor and Zegler to anchor when it comes to the fundamental love story. A buff, vest-clad Connor is solid, and especially funny when playing the newly, crazily enamored Romeo. Zegler has an impassioned, burning charm and defiance—but an ache or longing between them seems absent. Flirtation: yes, that’s there—subtly, sexily electric, but how that deepens into the play’s later notes of tragedy is missing.

There is one great moment—which deservedly receives a round of applause—when Romeo visits Juliet who is lying in bed. That bed is suspended from the ceiling, and Connor executes a perfect, muscle-popping pull-up to bring his face level to hers.

Both Zegler and Connor are able performers, but their grip on both characters feels inconsistent. Did I care about their falling in love? Not really. Did I care about the tragedy awaiting them? Nope. What about when that tragedy happened? Sorry, no.

Romeo + Juliet is a failure of cool intentions, a triumph of surface style over a much simpler, more basic responsibility to an audience. Do what you will with Shakespeare—set it today or in the future, make it into a roller disco, swingers orgy, breakdancing bonanza, fashion runway show, whatever; and throw as much pop music as you like at it—but don’t squander the magnificent banquet of characters and words you have been given.

The obviousness with which Romeo + Juliet aims at its intended young target market is its great flaw. In our obsession with demographics—Baby Boomers, and Generations X, Y, and Z—we can forget the things that unite us, particularly those who love theater. Theater fans span generations, they love to find new things, hear new voices, traverse boundaries, and alight upon new vistas of diversity and possibility.

Simply dressing the part, and having very famous young people in something, perhaps guarantees you all the tickets you want to sell and social media sharing you desire. But does every young person want to see a production that’s so bluntly, oddly cheaply and arrogantly, aimed at them? (Also, don’t assume your older audience is innately hostile to all the distressed denim and pummeling bassline you’re serving up.) Everyone, whatever their age and aesthetic likes and dislikes, wants a play to cohere at a more unifying level beyond brash coolness. In R + J, turning the volume up isn’t the solution.