Show reviewed:  Romeo and Juliet
Date saw the show:  April 26, 2008
Place saw the show:  Kansas City, Missouri
Company: Kansas City Ballet
Principal Leads: Luke Luzicka, Chelsea Wilcox, Matthew Powell, Juan Pablo Trujillo, Christopher Barksdale, Tamara Sanders
Choreographer:  Ib Andersen
Music Director:  Ramona Pansegrau
Composer:  Sergei Prokofiev
 

4 Stars 

Reviewed by:  Deborah Ground Buckner (Kansas City Correspondent - USA)

I must preface this review by admitting I have no background in dance.  Further, I have never really understood ballet.  Even the annual holiday performances of The Nutcracker have me trying frantically to read the program in the dark to be reminded of what each scene is supposed to be revealing.   

I do, however, know my Shakespeare.  I am one of those people so worshipful of every word Shakespeare has written that I become irate each time a production dares to cut a single line.  Why, then, would I choose to see an interpretation of one of his most popular plays completely stripped of the language and told through the medium of dance?   

My freshman-in-high-school daughter just concluded a study of Romeo and Juliet.  I thought it would be interesting for her to see the story told in another medium, so off we went to our mother-daughter afternoon at the ballet.  We were both enchanted.

Knowing the story of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers, we could relax, confident in understanding what was unfolding, and just enjoy the dance.  Ib Andersen, Danish-born and a former dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet and the New York City Ballet, has told the story splendidly.  The first scene, a busy marketplace in Verona, establishes the Capulet-Montague feud (complete with a good amount of thumb biting!).  Romeo (Luke Luzicka) and Benvolio (Matthew Pawlicki-Sinclair) appear as fun-loving boys, enjoying a moment of dance with the local girls, until Rosalind (Stayce Camparo) passes by with hardly a glance at Romeo.  He rescues a flower she has dropped and holds it to his breast, then smells its sweetness, and there is no question this is a love-sick boy.  Enter Mercutio (Matthew Powell) in a festive mask, his steps conveying his personality as a merry prankster.  When a servant of the Capulets presents a list of party guests-including Rosalind--the three make their plans to attend.

Meanwhile, Juliet (Chelsea Wilcox) is enjoying little girl play time with her cousins, not a part of Shakespeare's story,but  a scene that contrasts sharply with the plans being made by the Capulets for her to marry Paris.  Upon introduction to the man and the plan, Juliet recoils in terror.  Miss Wilcox fully captures the fear and the shock of being thrust into marriage "an honor that I dream not of."

Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio, disguised in masks and capes, enter the Capulets' gathering.  The event is an excuse for lovely dancing.  Tybalt (Juan Pablo Trujillo), Juliet's cousin, recognizes Romeo.  The following scene of a heated exchange between Tybalt and Lord Capulet led my daughter to whisper to me "You are a saucy boy."  When Romeo and Juliet first meet, and later as they are reunited at Juliet's balcony, the full power of new, young love is conveyed. 

In the marketplace, a comic dance depicts the Nurse (Tamara Sanders) attempting to deliver Juliet's message to Romeo while being teased by Mercutio.  Soon she accompanies Juliet to the chapel where Romeo meets them.  Friar Laurence (Christopher Barksdale) must pull the young lovers apart several times, so enthusiastically do they greet each other.  ("you shall not stay alone till holy church incorporate two in one.") 

In the marketplace once more, a duel erupts between Mercutio and Tybalt.  Mercutio's prolonged dance of death has been subjected to some sharp criticism, but I found it in keeping with Shakespeare's work-each exaggerated step proclaiming Mercutio's continuing banter, "a scratch; marry, 'tis enough," "you shall find me a grave man," before he finally dies, calling for "a plague o' both your houses!"  Shakespeare's Mercutio takes his time in dying, and Andersen's choreography captures that personality well. 

Romeo, banished, spends one night with Juliet before he must leave Verona.  Juliet's bedroom, depicted as a chamber with a long, heavy curtain and a four-poster bed, lends itself well to the lovers' morning debate of whether they have heard a lark or a nightingale.  Each has a turn at dance with the heavy curtain, Romeo pushing it open to face the dawn, Juliet pulling it closed to hold the night. 

With Romeo away, the Capulets order Juliet's immediate marriage to Paris.  Juliet pushes the Nurse away ("Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.").  She flees to Friar Laurence.  In a lovely scene, the friar holds out a vial.  While he and Juliet are frozen on stage, a spotlight reveals a Juliet look-alike drinking from the vial, falling into a sleep, then awakening to find Romeo waiting for her.  ("Is that a speech bubble?" my daughter whispered to me.)  It brilliantly communicates the Friar's plan.

When Romeo hears of Juliet's death, he rushes to her tomb.  The happy-go-lucky boy of the early scenes is gone.  In desperation, he raises Juliet in a dance as if he would return her to life.  Luzicka's desperate moves with Miss Wilcox's perfect depiction of a completely lifeless form create an unbearable sadness.  Departing from Shakespeare's story line, Romeo draws his dagger and stabs himself.  Juliet awakens, retrieves the dagger from Romeo's hand, and joins him in his fate.  The curtain falls on their two still bodies in an eternal embrace. 

Here, my daughter expressed disappointment with the ending.  "It needs the scene of Romeo fighting Paris so Paris' servant can summon the Prince and the Montagues and the Capulets.  When everyone finds them, Romeo and Juliet become healing figures, bringing an end to the feud.  When it just ends with them dead, they are only tragic figures."  I agree with her observation.  We both agreed, though, that this was a lovely performance.