Folger's 'Romeo & Juliet' Reveals Consequences of Parental Abuse

(BULLETIN — The Folger Theatre announced that half the proceeds from its performance of "Romeo and Juliet" on Friday, Jan. 28, will be donated to the tsunami disaster relief effort. Proceeds will be donated to the "USA for the United Nations Refugee Agency.")

Shakespeare's timeless "Romeo and Juliet" is being performed through Feb. 20 at the Folger Theatre on Capitol Hill. It is an incredibly passionate, energetic production directed by PJ Paparelli, who has a lot to say about the teenage mind and the teenage world. As, clearly, did Shakespeare.

Paparelli has co-authored a play about the Columbine tragedy entitled "Columbinus" that will open next month at the Round Top theatre in Bethesda. Whatever he's written into that one, based on years of traveling the country to interview and observe the world of teenagers, has also been drawn out of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" text with a powerful authenticity.

Paparelli in this Folger production helps us appreciate Shakespeare's attempt to get adults to think about the impact that their self-centered preoccupation with civility and self-aggrandizement has on the much different world of the teen.

Is anybody listening? Can any parent hear what they sound like to their teenage son or daughter? Does it matter?

"Romeo and Juliet" is not a sad story of star-crossed lovers who had the misfortune of each falling for a member of the other's rival family in Verona. The love affair, after the initial encounter, is a matter of daring, of boldly defying convention the way teenagers do, even while living in a world of division and hate passed onto them by their parents.

The tragedy is defined by two critical moments. The first comes when Romeo is banished by the adult authorities as a matter of simple expediency, without the simplest regard for the circumstances of, or his guilt in, the slaying of Tybalt.

The second is the frightening diatribe delivered against Juliet by her father when he objects to the marriage he has arranged for her. That enraged onslaught of deeply destructive verbal abuse drives Juliet to her suicide, only temporarily delayed by the friar's desperate but flawed plan.

Shakespeare's skill in putting venom into the mouth of the angry father makes it all too plain how words can kill. This was not an outburst, this was an eloquent paean to the worst, but all too familiar, kind of parental abuse. Many of us were, as youths, victimized by degrees of this. Some of us have heard such rages penetrate the thin walls of neighboring apartments, directed against children or wives, often accentuated by a slap, or worse. Some have seen the unexplained facial bruises the next morning. Some may have even heard this as in an echo chamber coming from our own mouths, although seldom appreciating what it really sounds like or means the other.

It is on this father's raging fury against his daughter's interference with his world of convention and manipulation that the whole play hangs. This is the murder weapon, and this is the murder.

It was the one point in the play that elicited the most powerful visceral reaction from me. Andrew Long as the furious Capulet did a magnificent job delivering it.

Kudos to all in the cast, with my personal favorites being Michael Urie as the brash, too young to die Mercutio and the Nancy Robinette as Juliet's adorable if somewhat spacey nurse. Then, of course, there was the excellent effort by Falls Church's very own young Miles Butler as Sampson, who opened the play with Christopher Luggiero as Gregory with saucy banter escalating quickly into a lively and protracted sword fight and brawl scene that included participants racing up and down elevated metal catwalks around the edges of the balcony.

Graham Hamilton as Romeo and Nicole Lowrance as Juliet were convincing, both for their youth and passion, even if Paparelli's staging of the party scene when they first meet — a darkened set with flashlights — did not allow us to fully appreciate how the two were so stricken with each other in the first place. There had to have been a lot of long stares included with the dialogue intended by Shakespeare for this scene, not too people who could barely see each other in the dark.

But quickly we were taken to accept the fact of their inseparable bond as the action moved to the garden balcony.

As the play careened to its all too familiar end, anticipation grew over how these two would actually pull it off. Intricate timing was key and they nailed it with ballet-like grace and pathos.

Performances through Feb. 20 include three that are free to anyone age 17 or under, matinees on Saturday, Feb. 5, and Saturday, Feb. 12 and on Sunday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 p.m. The play is recommended for ages 13 and up. For more information and tickets, call (202) 544-7077 or visit www.folger.edu.