Photo by Mark Frohna - Skylight Music Theatre - Facebook
Skylight Music Theatre’s 'Juliet and Romeo'
The musical theatre writing and composing team of Paul Gordon and Curtis Moore can sleep well. I can’t imagine a better world premiere for their immensely imaginative new musical Juliet and Romeo than the Skylight Music Theatre production that runs through Feb. 2. Michael Unger’s stage direction, David Bonofiglio’s music direction, and all the acting and design work are terrific. I’m sure the artists were inspired by the material, a warmly comic look at the creative process and the universal hopes for happy endings. In this show, William Shakespeare is the antagonist.
As the laughter and palpable empathy of the audience at last Friday’s opening night attested, this intermission-free, 90-minute dream play feels right for our dangerous time.
Our downhome hero, dressed in second-hand suitcoat and jeans, is a youngish fiction writer and community theatre director named Sawyer Bloom. His name suggests Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and the Leopold Bloom of James Joyce’s Ulysses, adventurers both. For me, the thought of Joyce brought to mind his young assistant, that great humanist absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett. This is a Beckett kind of play. For example, Shakespeare is a woman. No explanation needed.
The show opens to the sound of Renaissance music. Stage lights rise on the climax of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Romeo lies dead in the crypt and Juliet, desperate to join him, tries to kiss the poison off his lips. Failing that, she points his dagger at her heart and is about to stab when, suddenly, someone shouts “Cut!” from the back of the Cabot theatre. Sawyer Bloom storms toward the stage, and we understand we’re watching a rehearsal. Director Bloom can’t stand the shattering tragedy. He calls the cast onstage to send them home.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Shifting to Song
And somehow there’s music. The shift to singing happens gracefully throughout the show. Bloom sings first, and actor Frankie Zabilka’s bright, unaffected voice and style are perfect for this musical. I hope he takes this show around the world.
The community theater actor playing Juliet in Bloom’s production has some news to share with him, but it will take until the final scene for that to happen. Nothing is what you expect in this play, and I’m not going to spoil it.
Bloom’s determination to devise a happy ending puts him at odds with the “world’s greatest playwright, Will Shakespeare,” who strides onstage when the cast is gone and strenuously objects to Bloom. Allie Babish brings all the necessary gravitas and confidence to role. “You make us feel shitty,” Bloom tells her. “Sometimes art is messy,” she counters. “You need terrible things to happen.” But Bloom insists, “Nobody’s learned anything from your mess.”
So to show Bloom what truth in art means, Shakespeare magically sends him to 14th century Verona to meet her Romeo and Juliet. All the principal characters are there, played by the same actors as those in Bloom’s community theater production. Bloom determines to interfere with Shakespeare’s plot in such a way that Romeo never meets Juliet. He’ll save their lives. Can Bloom create a better ending to the story? The suspense remained strong for me.
Laughter Keeps Coming
There’s no need to read the Shakespeare play before you go. The show’s playwrights managed to turn their own doubts into comedy. The laughs kept coming. It’s a smart show. On some level, it’s a musical about itself.
The combination of Shakespearean and contemporary English is fun to follow. Juliet, especially, is fascinated by contemporary slang and loves to work it in. As Juliet, Jamie Mercado sings, speaks, and lives the role beautifully. Her Juliet is a perfect match for Bloom or, who knows, for Mason Hanizwski’s feisty, handsome Romeo.
The action shifts between the 21st and 14th centuries. Shakespeare sends her characters to our time when that becomes necessary to protect the plot from Bloom’s community theatre conniving. The shifts of time and location are beautifully executed with swirling projections and magical scene shifts.
Jonathan Berg-Einhorn’s scenic designs, especially the one for New York’s Central Park, are breathtaking. Steve Tonar did the dreamy lighting. Krissy Sneshkoff did the multi-period costumes. The unpretentious choreography is by Tori Watson, and the graceful fight direction by Jamie Cheatham.
All the other characters are joyfully played by Ben George, Samantha Sostarich, George Lorimer, Matthew Torkilsen, and Alexis Comach. Sostarich also serves as Dance Captain, Torkilsen as Fight Captain.
