Friar Laurence

For quite a while, there's much to like in the Romeo and Juliet that Tazewell Thompson has staged for the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival - notably a balcony scene entrancing in its whispered intimacy. From Romeo's giddily rapturous "Soft! what light through yonder window breaks?" to Juliet's melting "Parting is such sweet sorrow," Kevin O'Donnell and Suli Holum personify the transports of puppy love with a clarity and concentration that make their lines transcend cliche and echo afresh.

There's nothing wrong with the current "Romeo and Juliet" at the People's Light and Theater Co. that a little paregoric wouldn't fix. I haven't seen such stomping and aimless dashing around since the same company's "Peter Pan" came thundering by earlier this season. I haven't seen so shameless a display of scenery-chewing as Romeo's banishment tantrum since the triumphant farewell tour of circus kitty-sitter Gunther Gebel-Williams. I lay these excesses squarely at the feet of director Peter DeLaurier, who apparently, with all good intentions, aimed for a lightness of style but got the chariot race from "Ben-Hur" instead.

H. Michael Walls is among the Philadelphia area's finest actors, so it should be no surprise that his directorial debut at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival is, first and foremost, an actors' production. The Romeo and Juliet he has mounted on the festival stage at DeSales University is marked by sharply etched, intensely human performances in four of the play's principal roles - and any Romeo and Juliet so happily favored is more than halfway home. To start with, of course, there are the Romeo and Juliet of Robert J. Hamilton, making his second festival appearance (he was Ferdinand in The Tempest two years ago)

"For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. " In more ways than one. Woe, that is. This production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, a joint venture of the Acting Company and the Guthrie Theater, has been touring since early January, and Philadelphia's Annenberg Center is the 26th and final stop. It must be murder to keep up a schedule like that - a few days here, a few days there - so maybe that's why this production is so lifeless. Or maybe it's so flat because the acting is so broad and illustrative, and nearly every rhyme is punched: There is hardly a moment when you feel these are human beings, feeling intense emotions, speaking from their hearts and minds.

A friend and I were having our usual Berlioz argument. His charges involved something about bizarre orchestrations; a strange sense of musical form; and melodies that drifted off, incomplete, into nothingness. I was still waiting for him to get to the bad part. The friend then spat out something about the composer being a crack addict, though here I felt compelled to defend my poor, maligned Berlioz and was glad to have scholarship on my side. It was opium, not cocaine.

No one, obviously, told the Bristol Riverside Theatre that this is strictly against the rules. A Shakespeare play in its proper period, with no agenda except to make sense of the text? What could these people be thinking? The play is Romeo and Juliet, and just consider the possibilities. Romeo and Juliet as victims of child abuse. Juliet's nurse as the addle-pated avatar of a failed health-care system. The city of Verona as the global economy, with a set depicting the World Bank and characters dressed in the specie of various nations.

When light breaks through yonder window in the Public Theater's production of Romeo and Juliet, it illuminates a love story that can make you giddy. He climbs the framework to the balcony, and they kiss with passion. He teases, she teases back. He makes eyes, she blushes. Oh! Those crazy, wild, smoochy, smitten kids! Are they really star-crossed, or mostly starry-eyed? Well, both. And under the direction of Michael Greif (Grey Gardens, Rent), plenty of both. This may be the most joyful rendition of Shakespeare's play you'll see, a tragedy but also a ton of fun. The first part, though everyone knows this affair is about to head far south, is upbeat and playful.

The Arden Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, as it has been cut and cast and focused by director Matt Pfeiffer, takes a while to hit its tragic stride. But once it does, it is very satisfying. The familiarity of the story makes it a hard play to do, since most people know the plot (teenagers from feuding families fall in love; a horrifying series of murders and suicides ensues), and many can quote at least a line or two ("Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Unlike Juliet, the audience at the Hedgerow Theatre's production of Romeo and Juliet doesn't have to ask, "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?" The real thing is right there, on the stage in front of them, in the person of Tobias Segal. The talented young actor has done some fine portrayals on area stages since his Barrymore Award-winning role in a highly praised production of Equus four years ago, but this may be the best of all. Simply put, Segal is Romeo. Speaking Shakespeare as naturally as if he were talking to a friend on the street, Segal gives a superb, highly expressive performance fine-tuned to every nuance of Romeo as a boyish dreamer possessed by an overwhelming love that leads him to ecstasy, a measure of maturity, and doom.

The sexy, passionate Romeo and Juliet that opened last weekend at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival is just what R&J should be: a mix of potent chemistry between the two teens that rips through a starry-eyed first half and a star-crossed second. It's directed with a command of both the characters and the language by Rick Sordelet, who also happens to be the busiest fight choreographer on Broadway; this season, he's directed the brawling in the revival of Fences and the new musical The Addams Family . Sordelet also provides a historic link to this production: He did the fight scenes for Romeo and Juliet at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, on the campus of DeSales University near Quakertown, in 1992 - its inaugural season.

The sexy, passionate Romeo and Juliet that opened last weekend at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival is just what R&J should be: a mix of potent chemistry between the two teens that rips through a starry-eyed first half and a star-crossed second. It's directed with a command of both the characters and the language by Rick Sordelet, who also happens to be the busiest fight choreographer on Broadway; this season, he's directed the brawling in the revival of Fences and the new musical The Addams Family . Sordelet also provides a historic link to this production: He did the fight scenes for Romeo and Juliet at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, on the campus of DeSales University near Quakertown, in 1992 - its inaugural season.

"For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. " In more ways than one. Woe, that is. This production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, a joint venture of the Acting Company and the Guthrie Theater, has been touring since early January, and Philadelphia's Annenberg Center is the 26th and final stop. It must be murder to keep up a schedule like that - a few days here, a few days there - so maybe that's why this production is so lifeless. Or maybe it's so flat because the acting is so broad and illustrative, and nearly every rhyme is punched: There is hardly a moment when you feel these are human beings, feeling intense emotions, speaking from their hearts and minds.

Scott Greer is a busy professional actor who is having a wild week: He's in two very different plays, in two theaters a mile apart. Even a well-established actor who embodies all sorts of characters can't be expected to be in two places at once - and for a few performances, these two very different plays will be running at the very same time. Enter the understudy, a man with high name recognition, but not necessarily from theater roles. Yet. You may own his shoes - or, more accurately, shoes you bought at one of the six stores that bear his name.

The Arden Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, as it has been cut and cast and focused by director Matt Pfeiffer, takes a while to hit its tragic stride. But once it does, it is very satisfying. The familiarity of the story makes it a hard play to do, since most people know the plot (teenagers from feuding families fall in love; a horrifying series of murders and suicides ensues), and many can quote at least a line or two ("Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

A friend and I were having our usual Berlioz argument. His charges involved something about bizarre orchestrations; a strange sense of musical form; and melodies that drifted off, incomplete, into nothingness. I was still waiting for him to get to the bad part. The friend then spat out something about the composer being a crack addict, though here I felt compelled to defend my poor, maligned Berlioz and was glad to have scholarship on my side. It was opium, not cocaine.

When light breaks through yonder window in the Public Theater's production of Romeo and Juliet, it illuminates a love story that can make you giddy. He climbs the framework to the balcony, and they kiss with passion. He teases, she teases back. He makes eyes, she blushes. Oh! Those crazy, wild, smoochy, smitten kids! Are they really star-crossed, or mostly starry-eyed? Well, both. And under the direction of Michael Greif (Grey Gardens, Rent), plenty of both. This may be the most joyful rendition of Shakespeare's play you'll see, a tragedy but also a ton of fun. The first part, though everyone knows this affair is about to head far south, is upbeat and playful.

Unlike Juliet, the audience at the Hedgerow Theatre's production of Romeo and Juliet doesn't have to ask, "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?" The real thing is right there, on the stage in front of them, in the person of Tobias Segal. The talented young actor has done some fine portrayals on area stages since his Barrymore Award-winning role in a highly praised production of Equus four years ago, but this may be the best of all. Simply put, Segal is Romeo. Speaking Shakespeare as naturally as if he were talking to a friend on the street, Segal gives a superb, highly expressive performance fine-tuned to every nuance of Romeo as a boyish dreamer possessed by an overwhelming love that leads him to ecstasy, a measure of maturity, and doom.

H. Michael Walls is among the Philadelphia area's finest actors, so it should be no surprise that his directorial debut at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival is, first and foremost, an actors' production. The Romeo and Juliet he has mounted on the festival stage at DeSales University is marked by sharply etched, intensely human performances in four of the play's principal roles - and any Romeo and Juliet so happily favored is more than halfway home. To start with, of course, there are the Romeo and Juliet of Robert J. Hamilton, making his second festival appearance (he was Ferdinand in The Tempest two years ago)

For quite a while, there's much to like in the Romeo and Juliet that Tazewell Thompson has staged for the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival - notably a balcony scene entrancing in its whispered intimacy. From Romeo's giddily rapturous "Soft! what light through yonder window breaks?" to Juliet's melting "Parting is such sweet sorrow," Kevin O'Donnell and Suli Holum personify the transports of puppy love with a clarity and concentration that make their lines transcend cliche and echo afresh.

No one, obviously, told the Bristol Riverside Theatre that this is strictly against the rules. A Shakespeare play in its proper period, with no agenda except to make sense of the text? What could these people be thinking? The play is Romeo and Juliet, and just consider the possibilities. Romeo and Juliet as victims of child abuse. Juliet's nurse as the addle-pated avatar of a failed health-care system. The city of Verona as the global economy, with a set depicting the World Bank and characters dressed in the specie of various nations.