ROMEO AND JULIET
COMMONWEALTH SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, JULY 2017 - Reviews
Directed by Allegra Libonati
In Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's fleet, free-flowing "Romeo and Juliet" on Boston Common, director Allegra Libonati adroitly blends shadow and light to tell a story that is as much about young death as young love... Spectral figures wander the stage as the play progresses. At the end of Act 1, Libonati crafts a striking tableau that starkly juxtaposes the competing strains of love and death... Earlier, Libonati deftly conjures the swirling pageant of the masked ball, and she brings the action into the audience at times by sending her actors on periodic excursions up the aisles. https://tinyurl.com/yabct7l5
WBUR Review
If Romeo were to be cut into little stars, as Juliet envisions in the iconic tragedy bearing her and her paramour’s names, we’d be looking right up at him in Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s staging of “Romeo and Juliet” (through Aug. 6) on Boston Common...
Here, American Repertory Theater resident director Allegra Libonati helms a “Romeo and Juliet” that is straightforward, fast-moving and just plain moving. https://tinyurl.com/ ydcqrxpo
Edge Media Network Review
Director Allegra Libonati furnishes this rendition with so many smart, lyrical touches you sometimes wonder if you've seen the play before. Her cast members don't intone, recite, or enunciate the Shakespearean lines so much as channel them, with an ebullience that's as physically potent as verbally pleasurable. http://www.edgemedianetwork.com/218906
Slow Muse Review
... there was something ritual-like and life-affirming for all of us to gather on the lawn on a summer night, to let the 400 year old syntax and meter of a master take us somewhere else. This year’s production made it easy to step out of 2017 and its many, many sorrows. Directed by Allegra Libonati, the pacing and flow of the production is very strong. (I was also very impressed by the clarity of the diction employed by EVERY performer. It made the experience of Shakespeare’s language much more satisfying to not have to strain to hear.) http://www.slowmuse.com/tag/wallace-stevens/
Joyce's Choices Review
This year’s free outdoor Commonwealth Shakespeare Company production on Boston Common is simply ravishing: “Romeo & Juliet.” This rapturous production held us completely in thrall under a crescent moon in the middle of the city with even the nearby church bells eerily in synch with pivotal moments, ringing the heartbreak to come.... Director Allegra Libonati also bewitches us with her choices. She leaves us cliff hanging just as Juliet’s nurse holds a bloody handkerchief aloft and a bell tolls, and our hearts sink, because we know the action of the play– and Juliet’s heart– is about to split in two. At the beginning of the second half, Libonati recaptures this dramatic momentum by delivering a recap of pivotal lines and moments in a whirl of action, a brilliant stroke, modern and effective... My heart was in my mouth. SEE THIS. Prepare to be intoxicated. http://joyceschoices.com/theater-romeo-juliet-american-moor/