Schmitz ‘n Giggles Spoofing Shakespearian Romance

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Beth Lewinski

Optimist Theatre Shakespeare in the City banner

Shakespeare’s greatest romances carry overwhelming weight about them. They’ve haunted the stage so many times that it makes them very difficult to take seriously. Comedy writer Patrick Schmitz leans-in to the comedy of romance in his spoof The Comedy of Romeo & Juliet, Kinda Sorta. The writer’s Schmitz 'n Giggles comedy group presents its latest staging of the parody with Optimist Theatre for its Shakespeare in the City program this summer. Schmitz’s characteristic silliness continues to echo capably through outdoor spaces across Milwaukee this summer. 

The opening performance starred Amarion Herbert as a comically over-impassioned Romeo who finds himself completely taken with the young Juliet, played with considerably clever poise by Becky Cofta. Cofta has a particularly nuanced grasp of Schmitz’s spoofery. The doomed romantic love between a couple of kids is bathed in all kinds of bad judgment from everyone involved in the whole affair. Schmitz does a good job of finding the right places and spaces in which to comedically jab the classic drama. 

Schmitz directs a small cast through a flurry of jokes that wind their way through the classic tale of woe. The exhaustive story is somewhat gracefully trimmed-down into a perfectly manageable 90-minute program with plenty of time left in and around the edges of the love and bloodshed for bits of comic flourish. The witty flourish in and around the cast is felt most in the performance of Jen Manswell as Juliet’s nurse. Schmitz’s script grants real  respect to the nurse, who strikes a respectable poise as one of the most overwhelmingly competent characters in the whole cast thanks to Manswell’s substantial charm. 

 Schmitz 'n Giggles’ The Comedy of Romeo & Juliet, Kinda Sorta continues through various parks in and around Milwaukee through Jul. 14. For dates, times and locations, visit optimisttheatre.org.