Wherfore art thou ‘&Juliet’?
ONE MORE TRY: Rachel Simone Webb is Juliet and Michael Canu is Romeo in the North American tour of & Juliet, part of the BroadwaySF seasonat the Orpheum Theatre. Photo Credit Matthew Murphy
But, soft, what pop song through yonder jukebox breaks?
It is &Juliet, a zany, ultimately lovable attempt to combine late ‘90s/2000s pop hits with the Shakespeare fan fiction ethos of Shakespeare in Love and Something Rotten!
After a 3 1/2-year run in London’s West End and a Broadway run that marks three years this fall, &Juliet is touring North America with its message of empowerment through the confetti explosion of pop songs from uber-producer/songwriter Max Martin and a canny book by Schitt’s Creek writer/producer David West Read. The boisterous production is at the Orpheum Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season.
The thing about jukebox musicals is right there in the name. When actual jukeboxes are involved in real-life situations and people are paying money to hear songs they like, there’s usually a good time involved. There might be singing, dancing, smiling, drinking and canoodling. You know &Juliet knows this from the start when you notice a jukebox tucked into the visually busy set (by Soutra Gilmour).
That which we call a jukebox musical by any other word would sound as sweet. Mercifully, this is one of those jukebox musicals that uses existing pop songs to tell an invented story rather than the life story of the songwriter. Along the lines of Mamma Mia! or Moulin Rouge, &Juliet is all about having fun with pop music but with an insistence on making sure the fun and romance applies to a wider-than-usual variety of people, specifically binary and non, young and not-so-young, self-empowered and douchebag.
THAT’S THE WAY IT IS: Teal Wicks is Anne Hathaway and Rachel Simone Webb is Juliet in & Juliet. Photo by Matthew Murphy
If you don’t know who Max Martin is, you definitely know his songs by the likes of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande and *NSYNC. All of that is represented here, and the delicious irony is that these shiny pop baubles have been repurposed into a battle between William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife (not the Oscar-winning actress, which you can be sure is a running joke in this show). It seems that William never wrote a play for his wife and the mother of his two daughters (and one deceased son). She was 26 when they married and he was 18 (another fact that is duly noted on stage), and during his stellar career, he never dedicated a play to her or, in her assertion, depicted a happy marriage. When William announces his new play Romeo and Juliet, Anne thinks this might be the one for her, but its tragic ending pisses her off to the extent that she cajoles him into letting her rewrite it, or at least collaborate with him on a new ending.
In the Hathaway version, Juliet (the glorious Rachel Simone Webb) does not commit suicide when she wakes from her drug-induced slumber. Instead, she puts on her headphones and sings a mournful “Baby One More Time”: “Oh, baby, baby, How was I supposed to know, That somethin' wasn't right here?” In other words, she lives to love another day and sets out on a post-Romeo adventure of self-actualization alongside her faithful nurse (Kathryn Allison as Angélique), her nonbinary best friend May (Nick Drake) and her other best friend April (played by Anne Hathaway, who inserts herself into the action and is played by a vivacious Teal Wicks).
Corey Mach is Shakespeare and Teal Wicks is Anne Hathaway in & Juliet. Photo by Matthew Murphy
The rather silly plot takes the crew from Verona to Paris, where many romances are sparked. Juliet meets François (Mateus Leite Cardoso), who really has eyes for May, and Angélique reconnects with an old love, Lance (Paul-Jordan Jansen), who also happens to be François’ father – quel petit monde! All the while, William (Corey Mach) and Anne battle over who is controlling the story of Juliet and her friends.
Act 1 of this 2 1/2-hour spectacle is a sterling example of clever people – director Luke Sheppard and choreographer Jennifer Weber chief among them – making populist entertainment with zip and zing, intelligence and wit cleverly mixed with silliness, confetti cannons and actual firework fountains.
In Act 2, when there’s a forced reunion of a family band (an excuse to sing “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” and too much romantic complication, the show begins to wear on the nerves, and all the songs begin to sound the same. But the enterprise remains goodhearted, and it’s undeniable that some of these voices – Webb’s chief among them – are far superior to the voices that sang them in their original recordings (apologies to Mesdemoiselles Spears and Perry).
If there never was a story of more woe than that of Juliet and her Romeo, it must be said that &Juliet is smarter, sweeter and funnier than your average jukebox musical. That might not be saying much, but while parting may not bring such sweet sorrow, you can’t help but love that a star-crossed story involving Shakespeare, Juliet, Ke$ha, Céline Dion and P!ink offers a surprisingly good time.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
&Juliet continues through July 27 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes (including one intermission). Tickets are $57.92-$272.03 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.
