Word: romeos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Broadway premiere in 1957, the city-gritty updating of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet by Composer Leo nard Bernstein, Lyricist Stephen Sondheim and Choreographer Jerome Robbins was hailed as much for its quasi-operatic score as for its savvy lyrics and explosive, streetwise dances. Now comes a new Deutsche Grammophon recording, conducted by the composer, that makes the show's higher musical aspirations unabashedly explicit...
...rest of the movie follows a somewhat predictable Romeo and Juliet plot. Morgan retains his interest in Frankie; Nick is a jealous, violent sexist who regards Frankie as his personal "property" (which he calls her to her face several times): the respective families are suitably insensitive to the budding love of their offspring. The important scenes are almost all clashes of Nick and his henchmen with Morgan, and they are quite incredible in their high level of tension, fear, and brutality...
Most of the heroes of literature would have been far less heroic. Romeo would have said to Juliet, "You're a neat girl, but I don't think our families are ever going to let us get married. Maybe we should split up." Captain Ahab would have given up whaling and retired to grow petunias in a suburb of New Bedford...
...would not be a serious mistake to buy tickets to either Romeo, but A.B.T. has the stronger ballet and the superior staging. Both productions are almost ostentatiously grand. In neither is there a hint that Shakespeare set his story during a heat wave; the ladies are swathed in pounds of velvet, silk and gilt. But Designer Nicholas Georgiadis puts on a more magnificent ball in A.B.T.'s $900,000 show, and his Juliet is exquisitely costumed...
...Cranko's Romeo is nearly as much a theater piece as a ballet. The second act, with its clowns and gypsies and with its great duel scene, is easily the best, and the Joffrey performs it with sweep and charging bravura. Elsewhere there are difficulties, some of which should disappear as the company settles into the work. Right now the dancers have absurd ideas of rich life in the Renaissance. The men strut and pose, the ladies arch their backs so radically that they look poised for a back flip. An exception is Gerel Hilding, whose Tybalt has genuine authority...