Rep’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Has a Country Twang

Milwaukee Repertory Theater presents Romeo and Juliet at the Wilson Theater in Vogel Hall at Marcus Performing Arts Center, February 25 – March 30, 2025. Pictured: Piper Jean Bailey and Kenneth Hamilton. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

At first blush, adding Appalachian-flavored music and dress to Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare’s flowery and famous language – well, it sounds like an anachronistic conflict. Until you see the Milwaukee Rep’s take at the Wilson Theater in the Marcus Performing Arts Center and the way an old gospel tune like “Ain’t No Grave” dovetails with the tragic tale.

Director and adapter Laura Braza has been selective in her Appalachian concepts, emphasizes a fidelity to the original and clearly means her motif to be punctuation more than a gimmick. She has cast a strong mix of experienced Shakespearean actors and capable newcomers for a faithful exploration of the beloved play.

Braza only occasionally goes overboard in bringing on the guitars and zithers as choral enrichment. But there are touching moments in how she uses traditional ballads and bluegrass, plus a sniff of Stephen Foster, in the transfer of the tale to a rustic mountain country ropeline of jeans, cowboy hats, homespun masks, T-shirts and occasional motorcycle jackets.

Not that it all works and not that there aren’t phrases that bring us back to Elizabethan times no matter how carefully the actors and director handle them.

But sometimes she and music director Dan Kazemi have found startling good ways to modernize the circumstances. One is when Matthew C. Yee takes Mercutio’s famous “Queen Mab” speech and sells it with the guitar hijinks more usually associated with Roy Clark on “Hee Haw.”

Yee is not the only actor doing double and triple duty in Braza’s adaptation, which generally keeps the sequence and famous language of the original though with a smaller cast, while expecting patrons to use their imagination to roam from apothecary to tomb within one rustic setting.

She has also done something I have long wanted to see in the dozens of classic Romeos and Juliets over the decades (including Tom Hulce and Valerie Mahaffey in a 1978 Milwaukee Rep production at the Pabst Theater). Braza explores the behavior and feudal emotion in the adult characters as they cling to old ways and ignorantly dismiss the deep yearnings of smitten youth.

This production is more of a grabber in the older roles and double castings in a company where all can sing well and many can play stringed instruments. Nate Burger, a Milwaukee veteran and central member of the American Players Theatre, best demonstrates his natural ability with Shakespeare as Benvolio and then tries hard to bring the same offbeat brisk earthiness to Friar Laurence.

Another Rep veteran, Matt Daniels, brilliantly adds a country twang and explosive temper to turn Lord Capulet into the production’s driving force, and he also slyly appears as servant Samson.

Rather than playing the Nurse as a fussy old fuddy-duddy (the traditional interpretation) Alex Keiper invests an infectious, feisty youthful life into the role, and then turns around to be a stern but sympathetic Duke (Escalus in this version) who surveys the carnage (“A glooming peace this morning with it brings.”). Laura Rook, Nina Giselle and Davis Wood make good impressions as double-duty players.

Michelle Lilly’s set design (well-lit by Jesse Klug) looks only vaguely Appalachian and allows scenes to be played out on both sides of the stage as well as in the spacious aisles at the theater once known as Vogel Hall.

Perhaps director Braza was seeking to emphasize youth and impulsive desires against the more intellectual poetry-conscious approach of the past in the lead lovers. Her actors echo these well-meant impulses but nevertheless leave some character possibilities behind.

Kenneth Hamilton makes an attractive well-spoken Romeo, but he is in a well-trained rush to be more impulsive than poetic, even swallowing some famous lines.

In a winsome, well thought-out first act of unexpected love and emotional response, Piper Jean Bailey sneaks up as a fresh and exciting Juliet. The second act, when Juliet faces traumas that cannot be addressed by one-note variations on the character she first established, the actress and the director need to make deeper choices.

Jenn Rose’s choreography has some jumbles but also fetching backwoods stomps. Fight director Christopher Elst makes the country knife fights somehow fit swordplay language, even turning Mecutio’s death into a more natural consequence of Romeo’s attempt to intercede.

Braza’s flair for pacing and staging opens strongly, but the Appalachian theme occasionally seems forced in places like the wedding scene and the tomb chorus from the entire cast. The young lovers’ plight may drive the action, but this version thrives more on those around the couple – often quite well.

The restructuring of the Rep’s Powerhouse theater has sent the traditional subscription audience to other locales for just this season, including the Wilson Theater at Vogel Hall, on the river side of the Marcus Performing Arts Center.

Romeo and Juliet (tickets at www.milwaukeerep.com/shows/show/romeo-and-juliet/) will run through March 30 in a proscenium stage setting where the tech crew has hidden lights, costume changes and backstage maneuvers in a smaller space. The seats are comfortable, but the entry doors and lobby are smaller than patrons are accustomed to, so there can be a jam-up with digital tickets and last-minute purchases.

Romeo and Juliet Gallery

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Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.