RALEIGH -- Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" still holds the stage after four centuries because it speaks truths about human nature. Often the play's edge is dulled by productions too refined or academic. Not so the Raleigh Ensemble Players version, which energizes and electrifies the story in ways that few productions have.
One reason is the unusual concept. Playwright Joe Calarco's "Shakespeare's R & J" filters the play through the minds of four young men at a Catholic school. As antidote to their regimented studies and austere rules, they met in secret to read and act out the play.
At first, they respond to its bravado and swordplay, while having silly fun playing the women's roles. But as they become more involved in the story, the parallels to their own restrictions and forbidden activities invest their characterizations with unexpected emotional depth.
Calarco cleverly shapes the script to be told with no more than four characters in a scene. He adds nothing of his own except the boys' school prayers and class recitations at the beginning, some lines from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to set an other-world atmosphere, and a few selections from the sonnets,
The other reason for the production's roaring success is director C. Glen Matthews and his cast. The show plays in the small rehearsal space at REP's new downtown home (the main stage is not finished yet), thrusting the audience of 40 directly into the action. Matthews' extremely physical staging heightens the immediacy, aided by dazzling pace and timing.
The production has no props other than a copy of the Shakespeare play and a length of red cloth to hide it in. The cloth is used as sashes, shawls and headdresses, and even more ingeniously as swords, torches and vials of poison.
The actors vividly convey the students' brashness and intensity, any lost subtlety more than compensated by fresh, honest delivery. Familiar lines suddenly take on startling new meanings in this context, which unflinchingly explores the sexual ramifications of boys enacting the lovers' scenes.
Shawn S. Stoner makes Romeo a serious, determined teen, Juliet's love transforming him into a bold warrior. Jack Benton gives Juliet an endearing sweetness, making it easy to forget the actor's gender as he portrays her quiet, unshakable passion. L.A. Rogers is equally at home with Mercutio's braggadocio as Lady Capulet's haughtiness. Ryan Brock's Nurse elicits laughs from a mere curtsy or head tilt, while his Tybalt's dark brooding is chilling.
More could be made of the schoolboys' tentativeness in the first several intimate moments and the tightly choreographed staging often belies the supposed newness of it all. None of that really matters, however, in such a grandly entertaining, inventively fascinating production.
