Daniel Krmpotic, Praneet Akilla and Lili Beaudoin in Romeo & Juliet | Photo by Dahlia Katz
For years now, I’ve considered this not one of my favourites. A ubiquitous Shakespearean staple, it gets an inordinate amount of love in the canon. It, or some adaptation thereof, will always be within reach. When I see a truly great production of Romeo & Juliet though, as Canadian Stage’s Dream In High Park this year is, I am forced to re-acknowledge that, yeah, it’s a pretty good play, right? It delivers.
Setting her production in 1930s Italy, Director Marie Farsi and has stated her intention to wield the period’s authoritarian, patriarchal and pious social conditions to emphasize how primed the feuding Capulets and Montagues are to hold to their discord—aye, to cherish it. Thus we fixate on the clannish attitudes and violence, which ultimately throws the romance into heartbreaking relief. The kids are most definitely not alright in Verona. Romeo and Juliet never get to experience complex, enduring love, only intense infatuation, angsty rebellion and death.
To my absolute delight, another aspect of the play Farsi emphasizes is the humour of the opening acts. Not just in the Nurse’s unrestrained comments or Mercutio’s teasing of Romeo—though Michaela Washburn and Dan Mousseau are both lovable and amusing supporting players—but in Romeo and Juliet’s early flirting. Normally their meeting at the ball and subsequent balcony scene are treated with more lyrical dignity, but Farsi allows Praneet Akilla and Lili Beaudoin to be, well, quite silly.
The language, with these kids comparing each other to suns, moons and beautiful flowers, is so often accepted as, not only earnest, but deep. Those passages, though cute and lovely, have another layer rarely acknowledged—Shakespeare’s cheeky satire of Petrarchan love poetry. These kids are being pretty extra—understandable, of course!, their heads are in the clouds. They know all the pretty words. Akilla and Beaudoin get to be properly giddy and ridiculous with those words and that makes their fate, when things get real, all the more awful.
There is a truly inspired gesture towards the end of their iconic balcony scene, when neither wants the moment to end, that really touched me—Romeo gently placing a hand on Juliet’s foot. It’s not a grand as their kisses, but the unguarded affection of it hit much harder. Some other brilliantly realized moments include Akilla’s juxtaposition of his superficial grief at Rosalind’s rejection with the eventual, abject reality of his pain upon banishment and Mousseau’s sudden, very grounded fear and anger directed at Romeo as he dies before him.
In the form of Daniel Krmpotic, Paris gets to have some audience empathy. He’s often rendered as a pretentious and arrogant dweeb, but Krmpotic makes him relatively endearing. I love how even Mike Shara’s Lord Capulet finds him a bit of a bore. He’s a decent, upstanding fellow and a useful tool for Capulet to maintain his family’s honour, marrying Juliet off to him.
Shara does a fine job of showing us an amiable man trying to better the feelings of all concerned while still maintaining the patriarchal control expected of him. He can be so frightening in the scenes where he pulls rank over Juliet, Lady Capulet (Joella Crichton) and the Nurse; his brutality is poignant though because Shara shows us the vulnerability he can’t allow them to see.
Ugh, Tybalt. I really hated him so much here. Bravo to Ziska Louis, who conveys such sweaty, unreasonable resentment and paints a thoroughly distasteful portrait of a bully. He takes his place as a genuine embodiment of villainy here—the unrestrained upholder of intractable enmity. Perhaps he could be more nuanced, but he certainly achieves the desired revulsion.
The entire cast flesh out the story with enough authenticity to let the language sing. Sim Suzer’s set—a luxurious, through weathered, villa—is cozy and evocative. The moldy and crumbling stucco, the hung laundry, the clinging vines—all feel both poetic and lived-in. Of the many elegant and immersive aspects of Logan Raju Cracknell’s lush lighting design, I was particularly fond of the gentle warm light spilling through the billowing curtains of Juliet’s balcony in the cool evening.
At the opening performance, there was some brief laugher at the final discovery of Romeo, Juliet and Paris’ dead bodies in the tomb. While I’m not sure this was meant to be funny, I certainly understand the humour. The final tableau is très dramatique and, well, quite absurd—a fitting end to a scenario that began with such comic set-ups, only to deliver a rather cruel punchline. This production captures that dichotomy and is, on the whole, rich and entertaining!
Romeo & Juliet
July 13 to August 31, 2025
High Park Amphitheater (1873 Bloor Street West)
1 hour, 45 minutes (no intermission)
Dan Mousseau and Praneet Akilla in Romeo & Juliet | Photo by Dahlia Katz