OSF 2018 Review: Romeo and Juliet and The Book of Will

Hailey Bachrach was not able to review OSF 2018 Romeo and Juliet when a July show was cancelled because of unhealthy amounts of smoke from the forest fires north, west, and southeast of (the too appropriately named) Ashland. My house is a fifteen-minute walk from the Festival, I saw the show in June, and thought I could review it – until I sat down to write. I remembered only that the production was OK, not special, had one very strong performance, a couple of awful performances, and some blocking that made no sense. Clearly, I would need to see this production again, which I did on 1 September 2018. This review will explore why I found this production so forgettable despite the shows many noveltiesaf.

The prologue was spoken by the actors who will play Romeo and Juliet, alternating couplets. I usually object to several actors splitting Shakespeare’s prologues, epilogues, and the chorus in Henry V in the belief that the change of speaker registers more strongly than the words spoken, but limiting the speakers of this prologue to two actors, especially to the actors who will play these roles, was interesting, and William Thomas Hodgson and Emily Ota gave a lively reading. In deference to the hearing-impaired actor Monique Holt, who doubled Lady Montague and the Apothecary, Hodgson, Ota, and the rest of the company standing behind them related the prologue in American Sign Language (ASL) as it was spoken.

Another novelty is that Rosaline (Jennie Greenberry) is silently…