What’s wrong with those Capulets and Montagues, anyway?
They’ve been killing each other for centuries now. Nobody knows why.
Shakespeare’s not telling.
Which is the point of Bonnie J. Monte’s re-telling of Romeo and Juliet, playing through Oct. 5, 2025, at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison.
Hatred endures long beyond anyone’s recollection of its origin, destroying everything it touches. For Monte, the theatre’s artistic director emerita, 21st-century America bears an alarming resemblance to the Verona that doomed Romeo and Juliet.
We are, she writes in her director’s notes, “experiencing a horrific scourge of civil strife that is ripping our nation apart — it is an overwhelming philosophical, racial, religious, economic and spiritual divide that has engendered hate and violence and has put our democracy and our free society on the edge of collapse. It has pitted states against states, leaders against leaders, and neighbors against neighbors.”
Viewed through this lens, the production on the Drew University campus is especially intense. The sword fights between the seething Tybalt (Triever Sherwood) and Romeo’s mouthy pal Mercutio (Quenton McCuiston), and then between Tylbalt and Romeo (the strapping Isaac Hickox-Young), are violent affairs.
The sense of loss — young lovers full of promise for a better tomorrow, opting out of the bleak today forged by spiteful elders — feels all the more profound against the backdrop of current events.
Such is the genius of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. It enables its genius namesake to goad and challenge us, just as he did with 16th century audiences.
This cast is worthy of the endeavor.
A veteran of seven seasons at STNJ (Sense and Sensibility, The Rose Tattoo, The Metromaniacs), Billie Wyatt as Juliet taps her inner 13-year-old to convey the giddy flush of first love.
Juliet’s passion for Romeo grows in proportion to the objections raised by the grownups. As the second act hurtles towards its inexorable conclusion, Wyatt’s Juliet transforms from a petulant, rebellious adolescent to the most adult member of the Capulets. She chooses love, and pursues it cleverly and courageously.
Taciturn at first, Hickox-Young’s Romeo comes alive when Juliet enters the picture. Their chemistry is real: He and Wyatt are an item off-stage. STNJ patrons may recognize Hickox-Young from The Book of Will, The Rose Tattoo and A Child’s Christmas in Wales, among other productions from his eight seasons in Madison.
Another standout is Anthony Marble (The Book of Will, The Rose Tattoo, Enchanted April), who plays Juliet’s mercurial father. Tenderness toward his only child turns to tyranny when he demands that she marry his chosen suitor, the honorable yet ordinary Paris (Dino Curia). Marble’s fury ricochets around the theater with sufficient force to make the seats recoil in terror.
But the heart and soul of this production are Friar Laurence (Raphael Nash Thompson, A Man for All Seasons, Othello) and Juliet’s nurse (Celeste Ciulla, A Christmas Carol, The Rose Tattoo), the only characters who take pity on Romeo and Juliet’s plight and help them.
Thompson’s avuncular Friar provides the plan and the potion that almost succeed in delivering the lovers to a secret new life. Ciulla’s nattering Nurse injects welcome flashes of humor into the unfolding tragedy.
Like the play’s 20th century reboot, West Side Story, this Romeo and Juliet revival asks a pointed question: Will the Capulets and Montagues finally bury the hatchet? Will we ever rise above our tribal grievances?
Check back in another 400 years.
Romeo and Juliet, directed by Bonnie J. Monte with fight directing by Rod Kinter, runs through April 5, 2025, at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Tickets: $44–$82. At Drew University, 36 Madison Ave., Madison.
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