Word: benvolio
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...tone deaf, it seems to me. He has no sense of the music of verse." Al though Rowse usually retains the rhythm of Shakespeare's lines, some of his substitutions change it altogether. "We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf," says Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet; in Rowse's version he says "blindfolded," which adds an awkward syllable...
While this purist attitude strains the cast and audience endurance to the limit, it somehow manages not to spill over. With the unfortunate exception of Romeo's sidekicks Benvolio and Mercutio (Kate Levin and Jeannie Affelder), almost everyone -- even the servants saddled with endless forced Elizabethan puns --manage to speak in natural tones. Silver as Juliet stands out particularly in this respect, somehow projecting both the terrified innocence of a thirteen-year old and, gradually, the woman's depth of commitment and tragedy Few Juliet's have matured so convincingly...
...similar tendency towards the personal trademark mars Rauch's enigmatic final scene, as one mute autumn leaf flutters slowly out of the overhead grill. But interestingly, a Mercutio and Benvolio, and their depiction as Romeo's childhood pals--avoids this tendency altogether. The women succeed, despite occasional awkwardness, precisely because their gender attracts no notice and the audience soon responds in kind...
...Romeo's sidekick Benvolio, whom Shakespeare strangely allows to vanish completely from the play at the half-way point, Larry Carpenter lacks naturalness of speech. Theodore Sorel hoots his way through Prince Escalus, Wyman Pendleton is a hoarse Montague, and Donald Warfield's Paris is a proper stuffed shirt...
...valiant, for most of his energy seems undirected and wasted. And something must be done about his braying, villainous laugh. I know that rough edges are inevitable in a production cast almost entirely from one House but it is nonetheless a pity that one of them had to be Benvolio (Donald Scharfe). His announcement of Mercutio's death, one of the play's most poignant moments, he turns into a moment of near comedy. "Mercutio is dead," he says, without the hint of emotion in his voice. So what...