At times, oh yes, it was

Playing on the theme of love, the performance featured readings from “Romeo and Juliet,” “Twelfth Night,” and “Troilus and Cressida”- in that order, which happens to also be the descending order of most to least known. “Romeo and Juliet” being the play so well known that it’s reference is clichéd in love songs like Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”
However, what people might not know so much about Romeo and Juliet is the nature of the romance in the play. While it has a reputation for being known as a story of tragic, idealistic love, the truth is that Romeo’s character is more foolish than romantic.

In a refreshing take on this character, Shakescenes captured this with the casting and acting of Jason Norman. His just so slightly nasally voice undermines Romeo’s romantics enough to highlight his foolishness without making him seem like a total chump. Rather, he’s an earnest chump. When Juliet (Kate Munoz) calls him back to the balcony, he does so with a scampering rush. Norman’s Romeo really is a young teenager that just wants to feel infatuated love as much as he can. He’s a romantic figure that really wants to be so, but is hindered by his over-eagerness.

Munoz completes the classic romantic pair with a solid attention to detail. Her turn as Paris (Jack Croughwell) kissed her on the cheek was subtle enough to be complacent, but obvious enough to show Juliet’s discomfort. Later in the same scene, when Juliet receives the vial that will allow her to reunite with Romeo, Munoz did a brilliant job of letting Juliet’s joy eek slowly back into her face.

Nathan Micel as Capulet didn’t quite convince me with his anger, but his overall performance throughout the play makes me think he’s someone you should keep your eyes out for in upcoming plays. When he broke into barking his lines at Juliet (which would be quite fine by another actor), his voice faltered a bit. Rather than making him seem intimidating, it undermined his character and the dramatic tension of the scene.

However, Micel excelled when he expressed his anger in a more subtle way. Micel seems to have a talent for spitting acidic spite with his voice, something which would be more obvious in the cunning character of his other character, Feste, in “Twelfth Night.”

For those who don’t know, “Twelfth Night” is a comedy in which there’s a love triangle and plenty of mistaken identity. A woman (Rebecca Gates as Viola) dresses up as a man who falls in love with the man she works for, Duke Orsino (Simon Shestakov), who in turn is in “love” (he may just be after her money) with Countess Olivia (Faith Malay), who in turn falls in love with the male-disguised Viola who is courting her on Orsino’s behalf.

If you didn’t understand that, just know that everyone is in love, but no one’s love is being reciprocated and that’s pretty funny.

The production puts forth its best, simple bit of wardrobe in a scene between Olivia and Viola. In this scene, Olivia puts a veil over her head to symbolize her mourning and obscure her face. Traditionally, the veil would be a thin cloth over her head, but a set of large, circular, white-rimmed sunglasses were used as the “veil.” With the funny aspect of this aside, the sunglasses actually did an excellent job of hiding Olivia’s true feelings: her growing fondness for Viola.

A later scene with Olivia’s court fool Feste and her fun-to-hate steward Malvolio give the play a purely comedic aspect. Micel’s Feste is witty and cutting, and Ryan Perry gives a delightful performance as the play’s antagonist Malvolio. Malvolio isn’t a true villain, but more of someone who hates everyone and everyone loves to hate. Perry’s round face excels at being puffy and pouty as the steward. It nice to see this performance from Perry, since his first role as the Friar in Romeo and Juliet was straight forward and unremarkable.

After the comedic scene, Viola and Orsino talk of love, clueless that the two of them could be together (since Orsino still believes Viola is a man, and Viola thinks Orsino can only love Olivia). While it’s not a profoundly sad or tragic scene, it’s a scene that garners sympathy for unrequited and love while also lightly mocking it, making the two hopeless romantics seem clueless. Simon Shestakov’s voice and cadence fit Orsino’s character well: he carries a sense of romantic grandeur, but with enough aloofness to match the fact that Orsino’s “love” for Olivia is stubborn, hopeless, and shallow.

That scene ends the “Twelfth Night” sequence, and marks the shift into the “Troilus and Cressida,” one of Shakespeare’s plays that don’t quite fit his well known categories of comedy, tragedy, and history. It’s a play I’ve never seen or read before, and thereby cannot say too much about the performance of it, but Munoz gives another round of solid performance as the romantically tormented Cressida who is exchanged for a prisoner after pledging to be together with Troilus.

The play, or at least the production of “Troilus and Cressida,” had surprisingly modern themes. The value of love is questioned as Cressida finds herself reluctantly falling for the hunky Diomedes (Aaron Meneghini) and lamenting how physical attraction can be overpowering.

“Was not this love indeed?” asks Viola in Twelfth Night, and perhaps so do we after seeing this production. The clueless, the infatuated, and the tormented romantics all made their appearances in this selection of scenes. Most curiously, and probably wisely, none of the play’s resolution scenes were performed, so that the troubles of the characters shown could stay open at the end of the night.