DAVID FOX: Well, Cameron—we’ve seen some bad Shakespeare before, including at least two previous Broadway outings by director Sam Gold. There was King Lear, with Glenda Jackson looking like the refugee Mayor of Munchkin City. Then came the incomprehensible stew of a Macbeth, with Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga barely noticeable as the scheming pair. But nothing could prepare us for Romeo and… oops, Romeo + Juliet. There is no better (which is to say worse) metaphor for this train wreck of a production than turning Juliet’s balcony into a squalid, unmade bed. 

CAMERON KELSALL: The dirty bed, strobing lights and thumping music telegraph exactly the kind of aesthetic you should expect: This is Shakespeare for the Euphoria generation. As the star-crossed lovers, Kit Connor (of Netflix’s Heartstopper) and Rachel Zegler (Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story) make a stylish but mismatched pair, flanked by an ensemble that’s model-pretty and terminally hip. It’s a feast for the eyes and a headache for the ears. But you rarely get the sense that anyone involved has spent much time with the actual play.

DF: We’re assaulted by the wrong-headedness from the ambling preshow. The stage is festooned with talismans of youth: stuffed animals and oversize packages of Haribo gummies. But when the actors arrive, they’re less children than snarky, disaffected club-kids. Does Gold mean us to see them as babies? Adults already bored with life? (God forbid, Furries?) Of course, none of this is right for the play, but never mind. Gold can’t even parse and stage the famous first sentence: there are no “two houses” here – it’s more like a mosh pit. And as for “dignity”… forget about it. All signs here point to a clueless middle-aged director who hasn’t the faintest idea what it means to be a teenager. There’s no light, no window… it’s just broken.

CK: With the exception of Connor and Zegler, the ensemble actors all play multiple roles—a decision that further highlights the weakness of Gold’s direction. It’s often difficult to tell when an actor transitions from one person to another, and rather than offering any sense of detailed character work, the performances tend toward extreme cliché. Sola Fadiran, playing both Lord and Lady Capulet, toggles between campy and gruff. As Paris and the Nurse, Tommy Dorfman registers merely as disaffected—there’s no sense of the former’s incontinent rage or the latter’s abundant humanity and humor. Gabby Beans trots out the same Eartha Kitt accent she used to play Sabina in Lincoln Center’s Skin of Our Teeth revival, but it makes even less sense here as Mercutio and Friar Laurence. (She also serves as host for the pre-show festivities, introducing each member of the company by name.) It’s fair to say that no one else distinguishes themselves in any discernible way.

DF: I feel bad for the ensemble actors, saddled by both the poor staging and conceptual silliness of most of the doubling. At least Zegler and Connor get to avoid the latter. But she in particular is weighed down by Gold’s “concept.” Seen here, Juliet is the sullen, spoiled rich-girl daughter who is an overfamiliar archetype of Reality TV: think Kylie Jenner. That doesn’t leave the obviously gifted Zegler much to work with, and though she acts earnestly and knocks out the limited singing opportunity awkwardly shoe-horned in here (my new definition of a “dumb show”), she often seems barely sympathetic, let alone invoking tragic grandeur. And then there’s poor Kit Connor! He’s been Body-By-Equinox-ed and costumed to look like he’s aspiring to a career in ’80s gay porn. (Note to designer Enver Chakartash: even in Verona, they have sleeves.) A truly awful moment occurred at the performance we saw when a cell phone flash camera went off the minute he removed his shirt. Yet somehow, against all odds, Connor delivers an honorable performance, projecting an ardent, uncynical sense of sweet naivete that is entirely missing elsewhere.  

CK: Among the actors, Connor also seems to be the only one aware that the text is in metered verse—he alone nails the intricate rhythms of Shakespeare’s language. He also comes across as appropriately youthful—unlike Zegler, who despite being only 23, reads as world-weary and jaded. A terrific singer—the production gives her an Act 1 finale number written by mega-producer Jack Antanoff—she could be termed generously a limited actor. The pair’s whirlwind romance generates little chemistry. 

DF: As a palate-cleanser, I commend you into the hands of Lon McCallister and the great Katharine Cornell in a scene from Stage Door Canteen. Surely, they are about the unlikeliest Romeo and Juliet pairing ever: a 20-year-old gay man and a 50-year-old lesbian. Yet in less than two minutes, these two marvelous actors capture all the wonder, joy, and heartbreak of Shakespeare’s magical play in a way that nothing on stage at Circle in the Square can even hint at.