What would happen if you combined Lisa Frank, a Disney amusement park and a 90s music video? Probably something in the same aesthetic ballpark as the unabashedly over-the-top jukebox musical “& Juliet,” which is turning the West Herr Auditorium Theater into a nostalgic dance party through December 14.
Set in a remixed Y2K version of Shakespearean London, the show opens with a “Larger Than Life” William Shakespeare in skinny jeans (CJ Eldred, giving Mr. Shue from “Glee” energy), eager to introduce his newest play “Romeo & Juliet.” The players are on board until — wait, how does it end? His wife, Anne Hathaway (quintessential contemporary musical theater leading lady Crystal Kellogg) suggests maybe Juliet could choose life, rather than ending it all over a guy she’s known less than a week? Anne takes control of the quill and has Juliet run off to party in Paris with her best friends – with Will interjecting his thoughts on where the narrative should go.
“& Juliet,” which premiered in the West End in 2019, is full of surprises. One of the biggest is its showcase of just how many iconic pop hits were written and/or produced by the same Swedish man, Max Martin. As a producer for this show, all the songs are taken from his decades-long career, wherein he has written ear worms for Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi, Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande, just to name a few.
Typically in musicals, when a character feels an emotion deeply, they sing and the music and lyrics are born from their story. Jukebox musicals, which use pre-existing songs written for the radio, work backwards. When it’s time for a song, the character must feel something. This often leads to flat characters and contrived situations: wait, why is the rich French boy Francois (Noah Marlowe as an endearing dork) suddenly in love with Juliet, and why does the not-looking-for-anything-serious Juliet encourage him? Oh right, cue “Oops!… I Did it Again.”
To its credit, “& Juliet” is far more self-aware than most jukebox musicals. The book by David West Read (writer and executive producer of “Schitt’s Creek”) is full of wholesome humor and knowing nods to Shakespeare and pop culture. For those familiar with the songs, the opening vamp often lands as a solid punchline.
Much like the Baz Luhrmann film “Moulin Rouge,” the flimsy plot is mostly there to offer plausible excuses for high-energy musical numbers. Under the direction of Luke Sheppard, “& Juliet” introduces a colorfully explosive world, with infectious Broadway hip-hop choreography by Jennifer Weber and chaotic, flashing lighting design by Howard Hudson. The costume design by Paloma Young fuses Elizabethan accents (Ruffles! Lace! Corsets!) into 90s fare — baggy cargo pants, bomber vest, white sneakers — to create a unique, quickly recognizable style.
The energy of the show, in a word, is “teenager.” There’s the music that will remind many millennials of their teenage years. There’s the big emotions of adolescence — puppy love, self exploration, angsty heartbreak — that drive pop music as a genre. And then there’s a triple threat star as the titular teen Juliet: Fabiola Caraballo Quijada, a recent high school graduate and Jimmy Award winner who emanates rebellious spunk and youthful hunger.
It’s fun, if not super deep. The piece serves up fashionably bland girl boss empowerment messaging similar to that found in “Six.” While cringey, there are certainly worse messages for young girls than “don’t kill yourself over your first boyfriend,” especially not one as smoothly self-centered as Romeo (Joseph Torres, whose smirk and swagger mark him as a lovable f*ckboy).
However, the piece does more for women when it sets aside its platitudes and allows its characters to exist along a spectrum of femininity. Juliet’s nurse gets a name, Angelique (the commanding Kathryn Allison), and some agency beyond her role as a caretaker when she encounters her old flame Lance (Paul-Jordan Jansen). And Juliet’s best friend May (Nico Ochoa, self-described as “a cool refreshing glass of genderfluid” in their bio) is nonbinary. They are quickly introduced as one of many Shakespearean characters who disrupts a gender binary and then, thankfully, can just exist as a character who falls too quickly in love (like everyone else), even as the extent to which they identify as a “girl” fluctuates.
The Broadway shows that go on tour are often Big, needing to compete with attention spans eroded by the Internet and justify ticket prices that can exceed $100. “& Juliet” delivers a sensory overload, like they’re not sure what will produce the most dopamine so they’ll just try everything: glow-in-the-dark cotton candy, swinging from chandelier, a unicorn tapestry, dad joke puns, fireworks, fog, sequins. Is it Too Much? I kept wondering. Is there such a thing as Too Much Fun?
“& Juliet” plays at West Herr Auditorium Theater as part of the Rochester Broadway Theatre League season through December 14; tickets and more info here.
