By Nelson Pressley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 2, 2002; Page C01

"Romeo and Juliet" is a high-pressure tragedy -- torrid young love developing
against the grain of a bitter family feud in the dog days of summer -- yet
director Rachel Kavanaugh has fashioned a casual production of the play at the
Shakespeare Theatre. The temperature has been turned down under this
sensational story; Kavanaugh avoids lush romantic effects (the set is a dull
wood plaza with two parallel balconies spanning the back of the stage), and she
solicits plainspoken performances from her cast, as if the words alone will
carry the day.

They won't, of course. The audience knows "Romeo and Juliet" as a story of
passion and danger, with the Montagues and Capulets of old Verona spoiling for
each other with a bloodthirstiness that's deadly earnest. So it's a little
alarming to see Romeo -- a Montague -- freely discarding his mask at the
Capulet party he crashes with his friends, and standing so fully in the light
under Juliet's balcony when good sense says he ought to be ducking into the
shadows.

But the environment Kavanaugh creates is about as hazardous as grade school.
The opening brawl is akin to a harmless playground fight, with the local prince
coming across as an annoyed principal restoring order. When Romeo's friend
Mercutio has his fatal bout with Tybalt, the most quarrelsome of the Capulets,
he childishly provokes his rival by sticking a wet finger in Tybalt's ear.

The cast, not inappropriately, is quite baby-faced. As Lady Capulet, Juliet's
mother, Elizabeth Long cuts an elegant figure, womanly but youthful in her
strapless gown, hair smartly pulled back, big diamond earrings sparkling.
Standing next to Long, Jennifer Ikeda, petite, slender and plain, looks like a
mere slip of a girl as Juliet -- a plausible 13. (That's how old Juliet's nurse
says she is.) Paul Whitthorne's boyish Romeo and Romeo's pals Benvolio (Erin
Gann) and Mercutio (Harry Carnahan) are as wiry as teenagers in the jeans and
vaguely Elizabethan vests and jackets provided by costume designer Fabio
Toblini.

What's missing are the characteristics of youth that drive the play,
the rough impetuosity and swoony passion that lead to street fights and
perilous midnight rendezvous. Kavanaugh does give Romeo and Juliet a
semi-charmed moment in their first encounter, slowing down the music at the
Capulets' dance as a bit of mist drifts through Howell Binkley's lighting
design. (The lighting, like Peter McKintosh's set, is generally functional and
not terribly atmospheric; visually, this rustic-looking show doesn't give the
actors a charged world in which to operate.)

But Whitthorne and Ikeda aren't particularly sweet and personable with each
other. There is no fire or tenderness in the fast-budding romance, and no
poetry in their performances; their Romeo and Juliet are prosaic and
uninteresting together. (Separately, too, in "I'd rather die than live without
him/her" speeches that are surprisingly devoid of color.) Without a hot, risky
romance at the center of things, the havoc that ensues doesn't make much sense.

Too much of the acting seems roughed-in rather than polished. Carnahan sneers
loudly as the aggressive Mercutio, and though that's a reasonable starting
point, it's his only note, and that isn't enough to carry him through the
character's several florid diatribes. Bland chattering mars Claudia Robinson's
turn as the nurse, too.

Andrew Long does a fine slow burn as the combative Tybalt, and Gann effectively
plays the sidekick Benvolio with simple feeling. As Friar Laurence -- the local
cleric whose secret attempts to help Romeo and Juliet go tragically awry --
Joseph Marcell speaks in formal declarations that skirt stiffness but work well
enough.

Only Edward Gero lights up the stage for any length of time. Gero plays
Capulet, Juliet's combustible father, with drunken goodwill at the party and
fearsome temper when Capulet bullies the surly Tybalt and the politely
rebellious Juliet into line. Gero effortlessly makes the transition from
easygoing host to powerful patriarch and back again; it's a solid, well-rounded
performance, and he provides something that's missing in much of this low-key
production: dramatic force.

You get the feeling that Kavanaugh, a well-regarded young British director, is
trying to create a quiet, honest "Romeo and Juliet," and that she's wary of
whipping up false emotion. It's a noble idea, but she overdoes it, putting
forth a "Romeo and Juliet" with almost no emotion at all.