Interesting, but Less Than Satisfying
"What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is...a GUY?!"
I saw an all-male cast perform Romeo and Juliet yesterday at The Shakespeare Theatre. This is considered by many to be the best classical theatre company in the nation, and most of the time I totally love the plays I see there. (I have a season's ticket, so I go there a lot.) But the all-male casting didn't work for me, despite being historically accurate to Shakespeare's time. I'd been told that after a few minutes I would forget that the female characters were being played by men, accept them as their characters, and sail along for the ride. It didn't work that way; I never could forget for more than a few minutes at a time. Most of the acting was excellent. But I couldn't buy a Juliet who had an adam's apple and was taller than most of the men around her, including her father. She's supposed to be a 13-year-old girl, for heaven's sake. There were good reasons why English theatre abandoned the all-male tradition after Elizabethan times.
Something about the direction bothered me, as well. Several of the characters -- Romeo and Mercutio, especially -- seemed to be in constant, frenetic motion, as though the director had warned them never to stand still as they delivered their lines. It gave the play an overwrought feel that I found distracting. The sets and costumes were terrific, though, and the director made great use of live music in the production.