Obviously, a lot of & Juliet on Broadway was the same as the original West End production. I was mainly concerned with comparing how the cast takes on their characters and how the show would be "Amercanized". As a reminder this was the first West End show I ever saw. So let’s get into it.
For whatever reason when West End shows transfer to Broadway they will make small changes to the script. I never really understood this aspect, it’s like Europeans do not have faith in Americans to understand that “pub” means “bar”. Yes, they changed the word “pub” to “bar”, despite the fact the show takes place in Europe. It just feels unnecessary. As usual the Broadway actors were not told to put on accents, except for the actress who played the nurse and the actor who played Lance. They both had some ambiguous European accent which resembles that of the West End characters. I suppose I’m being nitpicky, but the fact some of them have accents and some of them do not make absolutely no sense.
When I found out the character of May was transgender, I was immediately worried that the American production would not stay true to this casting. Thankfully both Justin David Sullivan and Matt Raffy (understudy for May) both use “he” and “they” pronouns. The night I saw the show Matt Raffy was on and they were fantastic. I was relieved that Broadway kept this casting choice as Broadway has been known to censor trans representation. This is so important to me and the trans representation would have been lost if the casting department had not followed through.
The main reason I really wanted to see this show was for the cast. As a fan of Betsey Wolfe and Stark Sands I was excited to see what they would bring to the roles of Anne and Shakespeare. I felt as though Betsey’s portrayal of Anne was a bit more light-hearted, awkward, and silly. And I really enjoyed this about her performance. Also Philppe Arroyo’s portrayal of Frankie was really adorable and a bit more nerdy than Christian Maynard’s (understudy for Frankie on the West End who I saw). Maynard’s portrayal felt a little bit more frustrated about his situation, still he made Frankie so loveable. I loved each cast's portrayals, seeing all of the actors make the characters their own was delightful. Stark Sands was clearly the perfect choice for the role of Shakespeare. His voice fits the pop style well and although Shakespeare is technically the antagonist, he was able to keep Shakespeare likable. After seeing the show again, this is something I want to highlight: the men in this show are so lovable, despite the fact that they’re all a little bit self obsessed. This is obviously done for plot purposes. The writers want us to see this character development and obviously they want the audiences to somewhat like the characters who are men. After all, in the end (not so spoiler alert, but spoiler alert) things are resolved between all of the relationships and of course Juliet and Romeo get back together.
This kind of ruins the whole feminist aspect for me. Even if the show was a true critique of Shakespeare’s misogyny (which, I would argue, does not exist) it still leaves this expectation that women have to be in love with men to be happy.
Nothing obvious of the main costumes seemed to change. The set and lighting design were probably exact to that of the original production. Speaking of lighting design, I would say that this show has a good chance of winning a Tony for it. It’s very extravagant, I can not imagine calling a show like this as it must be very difficult and precise. As for the sound design, it was not as good as the West End production in my opinion. It was not as loud and I could barely hear the music that was played before the show. On the other hand, the music in the West End production was a lot louder and clear. I sat in the middle orchestra, toward the back of the theatre. I wish the music had filled the entire theatre. This theatre was quite large, so I can imagine this is difficult. However, it is the sound design team's job to make it happen and unfortunately they were not meticulous with this.
This next thing is not really a comparison, but it is something I noticed after seeing the show for the 2nd time. Shakespeare is actually the one to set up May and Frankie. This is a relationship most audience members absolutely fawn over, yet Shakespeare never gets credit for it. He still made to look like the bad guy, meanwhile Anne is the one who sets up Juliet and Frankie, perpetuating another stereotype. Another thing is that everything is entirely spoonfed to the audience, including the original plot to Romeo & Juliet. Shakespeare paraphrases it at the very beginning. Let’s be honest, if you know absolutely nothing about Romeo & Juliet you likely would not be in this audience. Not only this, but the jokes are spoon fed to the audience. There’s sort of this unsaid rule that if you have to explain a joke it’s probably not funny. This truly just contributes to the poor writing and makes the dialogue unnatural.
Once again, I want to highlight that this show is so clearly created by men who have no idea what it’s like to be a woman or live the queer/transgender experience. Everything is so surface level. The way they show May having to choose between the mens and womens bathroom is about as deep as it gets. I truly wish the transgender representation was stronger in this show because we see so little of it on Broadway.
I would have to say I appreciate the orchestrations a bit more now, but this show's biggest flaw is still that it was poorly written.
Some things that happened about my specific performance:
-After the Backstreet Boys number the audience went wild and basically did not stop cheering for 2 minutes straight. I could see the cast was not expecting that and they were desperately trying to stay in character and not laugh.
-Stark called out someone who was bootlegging the show, which I thought was so funny. When talking about donating to Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS (which I highly recommend you go donate to) he said something along the lines of “we take cash, cards, checks for those who bring their checkbooks into New York City on a Friday night, and we take I phones for people who film Act 1 (and then he pointed to a very specific person LMAO).
-The audience was absolutely horrendous. American theater goers just do not know how to act. This is definitely something different I noticed between the West End production vs the Broadway production. A bunch of people near me were having side conversations, singing along to the songs, and filming the show. It was incredibly frustrating because this show is already so high energy, their distractions were very overstimulating for me. I beg of you, if you’re an American theatergoer, have some respect for both the actors and other audience members. It confuses me why Americans drop upwards 200$ on a ticket just to speak throughout the entire performance.
-Daniel J Maldonado opted up in “It’s My Life” and slayed so hard
-By the way this was my 29th Broadway show! I’m so close to 30!
Signing off,
-Jo 🌈
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