If you’re anything like me, you probably haven’t spent a lot of time wondering why Juliet had to die at the conclusion of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo & Juliet. But the creators of the new Broadway musical & Juliet apparently have, resulting in the latest of what seems like an endless torrent of jukebox musicals. Fortunately, this effort featuring dozens of earworm-heavy smash hits by pop composer/producer Max Martin (a name you may not know, but you’ll have no trouble recognizing his songs) and his various collaborators provides the sort of infectious silliness that makes for a very enjoyable evening, provided that you leave your brains at the door.
Of course, just because a show is frivolous doesn’t mean that it can’t hit you over the head with a message. In this case it’s female empowerment, especially for the teenage Juliet (a powerhouse Lorna Courtney) and Anne Hathaway (Betsy Wolfe charming and funny), Shakespeare’s beleaguered wife who makes it clear at the beginning that she doesn’t care for the ending of her smug husband’s (Stark Sands) new play (nor, for that matter, his eventual bequeathing to her of his “second-best bed”). So she suggests in no uncertain terms that he change it.
The show’s meta-theatrical conceit imagines that Juliet didn’t kill herself upon finding Romeo dead, but rather lived on to explore new horizons by taking a road trip to Paris, accompanied by her non-binary friend May (Justin David Sullivan). There, she meets and begins a relationship with Francoise (Philippe Arroyo), a young man whose father Lance (Paulo Szot) has ordered him to either get married or enter the military. Although not excited about either option, Francois proposes to Juliet, still on the rebound from her star-crossed relationship with Romeo (Ben Jackson Walker), who (spoiler alert only for those who don’t read the Playbill), turns out to be not so dead after all.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
As with Shakespeare’s original, the musical abounds with subplots, in this case involving the burgeoning romance between Lance and Juliet’s wisecracking nurse Angelique (a hilarious Melanie Le Barrie); and the sexually confused Francoise finding himself drawn to May.
Book writer David West Read (Schitt’s Creek) somehow manages the difficult feat of weaving the goofiest of pop songs into the Elizabethan proceedings with almost sublime ingenuity. You’ll find yourself giggling as the middle-aged Lance and Angelique burst into a post-coital rendition of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” and Shakespeare and Anne express their sharp differences of opinion with Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way.” And when the vainglorious Romeo makes his reappearance, how else should he proclaim his revival from the dead but with Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life?”
Director Luke Sheppard provides the sort of high-octane, pop concert-style staging that gives the not dissimilar Six a run for its money (although that show is smart enough to last a tight 80 minutes, compared to this one’s overlong two-and-a-half hours), complete with flashy lighting and video effects, a turntable and rising platform. Jennifer Weber’s energetic choreography would prove perfectly suitable for the latest girl group or boy band at Madison Square Garden.
The show’s terrific music numbers, fueled by high-powered vocals, give it a propulsive energy that’s impossible to resist. Or, as the ensemble puts it in the climactic Justin Timberlake song, “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”
& Juliet opened November 17, 2022, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. Tickets and information: andjulietbroadway.com
