Marlowe? Bacon? DeVere? What's-his-name's play.

In the 16th century, the English language finally was settling into what we now know as "modern English." Elizabeth I was on the throne, and the people were finally starting to calm down about who was more Christian, Catholics or Protestants. England was a conservative place. Morals were enforced by designated churchmen, much the same as Saudi Arabia has religious police today. And, one of those morals was a prohibition on women appearing as actors on stage.

It was into this environment that William Shakespeare penned one of his most popular and well-known plays, Romeo and Juliet, knowing that the role of Juliet would be played, not by a beautiful, young, teenaged girl (Juliet is only thirteen years old), but by a boy with an unchanged voice. Such was the world of drama in Elizabethan England.

Here in modern Washington, we are blessed with a stable, well-funded, experienced group of actors at the nationally-known Shakespeare Theatre Company. During October, they have been running Romeo and Juliet, and we were fortunate to have seen the show this past weekend.

Director David Muse wanted to do something to "freshen up" the production—clearly one of the old war horses of the Shakespearean category—so they opted to follow the practices of Elizabethan England with an all-male cast of characters. With all the gravitas they could muster, men played each of the female roles in the play. And, this was a very serious play, not some gay-inspired farce, that sought to replicate old performance practice.

It worked.....almost. Certainly, I was not bothered by the men playing the roles, and those men playing the older women were all very effective. Even the man playing Juliet was very good, but therein lied the fault; a man played the role, not a boy. That may not have been a problem in and of itself, but it was, to me, a failure in the pairing of the Juliet they cast, James Davis, with the Romeo, Finn Wittrock. Now, in their own scenes, Davis and Wittrock both were very good. Wittrock was very believable as a 15 or 16 year old teenager with his energy and his angst. Davis made a comely and effective young woman. That was problem number one. Juliet seemed to be a young woman, whilst Romeo seemed to be a teenager. Then there was the physical pairing. Romeo was quite noticeably shorter than Juliet, the nurse, and Lady Capulet. And finally, when they were together, I didn't feel the love and infatuation between them.

That lack of emotion seemed underscored in two key scenes. First, in the famous bedroom scene, there was no bedroom scene. They simply walked out on the balcony, Juliet in her dress, and Romeo with his shirt off (but quickly put back on), then Romeo climbed down the wall, and all the lines were delivered from there. No love. No romance. No "ahhs." Finally, in the end, the suicides were too quick and mechanical, especially Juliet's, and there was no room for the audience to cry, to mourn, to experience catharsis.

Otherwise, this is a dazzling production. Making use of the thrust stage in their new Harmon Center for the Arts (they continue to retain their proscenium stage at their Lansburgh Theatre in another building downtown), the stage was painted in wood tones with a large sunburst pattern in the center. In the background, we could see a series of three flat arches for depth and various entrances upstage. The furthest downstage arch housed a balcony and a series of bars were attached to the side support wall for Romeo to climb up and down.

Costumes were fascinating and varied—that's one of the advantages of being in a house with a large budget and a large wardrobe department. There was a little of the red and blue Capulet and Montague theme going on, but it wasn't overwhelming.

The thing that impressed me most, though, were the props. With essentially a bare stage and no curtain, all of the atmosphere had to be created with props. Many of the props were ingeniously designed, serving many different purposes with just quick adjustments. Some props, too, were stunning, such as the tall, beautiful, floral topiaries brought in for the Capulet ball.

The show saw some very strong performances from Aubrey Deeker as a great, energetic, fun Mercutio, and from STC regular Ted Van Griethuysen as Friar Lawrence, plus a noteworthy but slightly over the top go at the nurse by Drew Eshelman. I wasn't quite so impressed by Cody Nickell as Tybalt, but that may have been an issue of direction (more on this later). We also saw solid work from Hubert Point-Du Jour as Benvolio, Dan Kremer as Lord Capulet, and Tom Beckett as Lady Capulet.

It's been a while since I last read the play, so I'm not totally sure exactly who was to say what. I seem to recall, though, that some of the lines seem to have been rearranged or maybe even supplemented with new text. I don't know what was the practice in the 16th century, but there were parts of the prologue and epilogue that weren't delivered by a single actor, but by multiple members of the large cast.

They played up the bawdy nature of some of the lines—again, a common period thing—and there was quite a bit of sexual humor, including one spot after the party when Mercutio relieves himself on stage.

Now, I don't think I'm spoiling anything, given how well-known is the play, but they made a major change in the mechanism of death for Tybalt. As you know, Tybalt stabs Mercutio, then Romeo gets mad and kills Tybalt.....Shakespeare had Romeo kill Tybalt with a sword, but in this production, Romeo does the deed by drowning Tybalt in a barrel of water on stage! It was a very effective and violent death, but we were just kind of looking at one another thinking, "huh?" and then thinking that again when Lady Montague's lines referred to stabbing.

Finally, there was one sour note running through the production. Original, 21st century music was written for this production by a group called The Broken Chord Collective, and it just didn't fit. What's more, the actors singing the music weren't really what I would call "musical," but the production—same as the bad habit we often see on Broadway—didn't want them to be musical. It annoyed me, and I don't think it added to the show.

Last weekend was the last weekend of the run (actually, it had been extended), so, you won't get a chance to go see the show. Sorry I didn't get my review written up more quickly. Nonetheless, STC has a full season planned, and I'm looking forward to Twelfth Night in December.