The Windsor Star - June 4, 1992

"Monette's Romeo and Juliet on the side of youth"
Jamie Portman

"A tragedy of youth as youth sees it" is the way Shakespearean scholar Harley Granville Barker once described Romeo And Juliet.

Well, director Richard Monette appears to have taken that sentiment to heart with the rewarding production that arrived at the Stratford Festival Wednesday night.

This is an unabashedly youth-oriented Romeo And Juliet - splendidly, if sometimes untidily, alive. And although the Festival Theatre stage has in the past seen more polished performers in the title roles, this season's Romeo (ex-University of Windsor drama student Antoni Cimolino) and Juliet (Megan Porter Follows) are so convincing on their own terms that the tradeoff seems eminently worthwhile.

THERE HAVE BEEN too many occasions when the performers doing these roles have been patently too old for the characters, no matter how outstanding their acting talents. A prime example is Monette himself, who stretched the bounds of plausibility when he was cast as Romeo in a 1977 Stratford production.

But in Monette's imaginative new production at the Festival Theatre, one really can believe that these star-crossed lovers are genuine teenagers.

Cimolini's Romeo is the prototype impetuous adolescent: revelling in the sheer delight of living, he is fierce in his loyalties, comically vulnerable in his love, and volatile in his emotions.

In fact, his very gaucheness is disarming: as the production's enchanting moonlit balcony scene demonstrates, even the clumsiest of adolescent wooing can also reflect the most unshakeable of commitment.

With Juliet, Follows proves that her talents extend beyond television portrayals of Anne Of Green Gables. Her Juliet seems incredibly young - in the early scenes one can genuinely believe that with her mixture of childlike simplicity and budding adolescence, she really is no more than 13.

Yet, if childlike, she is never childish. And from the sweet humor of the early scenes, she moves on to a simple nobility which seems both true to her concept of her character and affecting in its impact.

Monette's production places the customary emphasis on the rivalry between Romeo's family (the Montagues) and Juliet's family (the Capulets) and on how this enmity triggers tragedy and death for those dearest to them.

To give these concerns a more contemporary flavor, Monette and designer Debra Hanson have set the play in 1920s Verona, when Italy's social, political and economic structure was unravelling, and the Fascists were beginning to exploit the resulting tensions.

But there is also an attempt to give a further dimension to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet - showing what can happen to two young people when maturity is forced on them along with the dreadful reality of mortality.

The conflict between the freedoms and consolations of youth and the demands of adulthood receive touching utterance in this production - perhaps most memorably in the scene when Juliet drinks the potion that will reduce her to a death-like condition and then settles down on her bed clutching her doll to her body.

MONETTE SHOWS an exquisite eye for visual texture and emotional resonance in this production - particularly in the balcony scene, the enchanting and colorful ballroom scene and a daring tomb sequence at the very end.

And he has surrounded his two young principals with some of the most accomplished actors in the festival company. Colm Feore, who was raised in Windsor, plays Romeo's doomed friend Mercutio in a manner that is one part swaggering bravado and one part decadence. It's a characterization that definitely holds your attention. Barbara Bryne is superb as Juliet's devoted nurse - a black-clad spinster who wields her purse as though it's a weapon, but who has a heart of gold and who - like the production itself - is clearly on the side of youth.

Source: The Windsor Star

Kitchener-Waterloo Record - June 4, 1992

"Lovers in a dangerous time : Megan Follows gives radiant performance in fine production of Romeo and Juliet"
Robert Reid

But the production, intelligently and craftily directed by Richard Monette, has more going for it than a pleasant TV star.

Follows is a radiant Juliet. Although the 24-year-old actor is performing her first classical role, she all but eclipes Antoni Cimolino's Romeo.

Follows' Juliet is a bright, nimble-thinking pragmatist, but it's her directness and purity that come across so powerfully and make her such a fetching innocent.

Cimolino has the physical attributes, including boyish good looks and muscular physique, to be a convincing Romeo. However, he comes across as a somewhat limp speciman who never really catches fire emotionally or sexually.

In contrast, Colm Feore's Mercutio brims with a masculine bravura that exceeds lusty cynicism and youthful exuberance. When he is killed the production loses much needed wattage.

The production is served well by a number of other fine performances beginning with Kate Trotter's sensually passionate Lady Capulet.

Barbara Bryne is an unconventional nurse, but the terrier-like tenacity with which she tears into the role proves a continual delight.

Capulet is often portrayed as long in the tooth and comically ineffectual, but Lewis Gordon's Capulet is a forceful domestic tyrant, subject to fits of violent rage as well as maudlin tenderness.

Monette superbly delineates the strained relationship between Juliet and her parents. While their love is never in doubt, they neither know nor understand their daughter - a situation, unfortunately, that will be painfully familiar to many children and parents in the audience.

Bernard Hopkins has the physical appearance to be an ideal Friar Lawrence, but his ability with language elevates his performance beyond stereotype and cliche.

As Ronald Bryden notes in the festival program, Romeo and Juliet often suffers for being presented through a touchy, feely romantic patina. In contrast, Monette presents a clearly focused play that highlights the social violence against which the love of Romeo and Juliet shines so brilliantly - if only momentarily.

Monette and designer Debra Hanson have set the play in Italy in the turbulent 1920s. Thanks to historical hindsight, we know that the country was teetering on the brink of Fascism - a powerful symbol of the cultural hatred demonstrated between the houses of Capulet and Montague.

Although the historical setting causes some minor incongruities, such as the juxtaposition of sword and switchblade, the raw vitality and energy of the 1920s reflect the same qualities embodied and enacted in the play.

This production is pared down in comparison to the earlier productions Monette has directed at Stratford. One gets the impression that he wanted the play's language and imagery to tell the story without unnecessary distraction. By foregoing the frills and the trappings, Monette presents a play that speaks eloquently for all lovers in dangerous times.

The play, one of four Shakespearean works to be staged at the Festival Theatre in celebration of its 40th season, continues through Nov. 15.

Source: The Kitchener-Waterloo Record