Romeo Montague slashed the romance swath in Brooklyn in 1960 in search of Juliet. His polite attitude and embroidery speech are very different from the local Patois and are still fascinating.
After all, he never died at the end of Shakespeare’s play. He just slept for 400 years. of “Romeo & BernadetteMark Salzmann’s sweet and eerie musical comedy Romeo (Nikita Burstain) wakes up in modern-day Fairverona and spies on a young woman who is the very image of her lost lover.
She’s not Juliet Caplet, but Bernadette Penza (Anna Costakis), a tough Italian-American who spends her vacation with her parents. He chases her, she rejects him and threatens to throw himself off the bridge — always so dramatic, our Romeo — and she agrees that she is actually Juliet. Stop him by. Romeo continues as she returns home to Brooklyn and her brute force fiance (Zack Channe).
In this romantic fantasy of underwater fish, money and passports are no obstacle to a man in the 1500s, but some of Romeo’s old problems manifest themselves in 20th-century attire. His new best friend, Dino (Michael Notardonat), is the son of Mafia Don (Michael Marotta), all three involved in a clash with another mob boss, Bernadette’s father (Carlos Lopes). It will be.
“Again my love is suffering from a war between the two families!” Romeo laments, but this time he is keen on a happy solution.
Directed and choreographed by Justin Ross Cohen at Theater 555, and presented by Eric Crepes in collaboration with the Amas Musical Theater, the show is a prestigious show that can be easily teased with a cheesy edge. It pleases cartoon mobs and doesn’t care about hips. For example, unlike Romeo’s loved one, or the West End jukebox musical “& Juliet,” who imagines another fate of “Fatham,” at the James Suiyames Pulitzer Prize-winning “Hamlet” public theater. Playback. Both have a much higher attractive ratio.
As in the program credits, “music with classical Italian melodies” (many of the songs by Francesco Paolo Tosti, music directed by Aaron Gandhi), and witty costumes of the era (Josephsch). (By rope), like “Romeo & Bernadette”, feel familiar, fugitive: the theater as a cheerful and comfortable food. Its appeal should not be underestimated, especially at this time of the relentlessly disastrous headline.
The most important part of the work is the framing device. The musical begins with a performance of “Romeo and Juliet” by Brooklyn community players. The corpse-studded ending shed tears on British major (Ari Raskin), and her untapped date (Notardonato) worried that her chances of scoring could be destined. So he spins the story of “Romeo and Bernadette” as the story of “Real Romeo”. If he hadn’t seen him barely paying attention to the play, his ingenuity could be dismissed as more plausible and more sneaky.
Still, in the story he weaves Burshteyn makes Romeo an absolute loved one and has the originality that his parents fainted. It is no exaggeration to say that Bernadette ultimately recognizes him as a milder version of the man than her violent fiance.
The illusionary Troy Valjan Lacquer stands out in multiple roles, including a florist who offers Shakespeare’s puns to tickle the ribs. Judy McLean brings depth to the role of Bernadette’s mother, Camille. Camille longs for the glory of her outstanding ancestors and warns her daughter of the dangers of living a mafia life in the most realistic scenes of the show. The fine cast is closed by Vietovo as Pensas bodyguard Lips.
Street violence, men and boys kill each other — these are part of “Romeo and Juliet”. But in ancient Verona, the knife is the weapon of choice. “Romeo & Bernadette” is not a “West Side Story”, but a genocide on the stage. There is no death, good wins. But there is the sound of guns and shootings, when you may feel that brutal reality is invading.
Welcome to Romeo, America.
Romeo & Bernadette: The Musical Story of Verona & Brooklyn
Until June 26th at Theater 555 in Manhattan. romeoandbernadette.com.. Execution time: 2 hours.
