‘Romeo & Juliet’ Ignites Central Park

June is busting out all over, as Oscar Hammerstein II once put it, especially in Central Park, where a couple of crazy kids are experiencing all the joys and perils of young love. Okay, Romeo and Juliet are technically well over 400 years old at this point, but they keep returning to delight and haunt us — and right now, they’re looking especially frisky.For the Public Theater’s latest production of “Romeo & Juliet,” being staged as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series at the outdoor Delacorte Theater, Saheem Ali, the Public’s associate artistic director and resident director, has recruited a pair of actors who are pretty much just getting started in their careers for the title roles: Daniel Bravo Hernández made his Broadway debut in 2024 juggling two smaller parts in the misbegotten “Romeo + Juliet,” and Ra’mya Latiah Aikens graduated only last year from New York University’s MFA program in acting.What these leading players lack in experience they make up for with energy and enthusiasm, which Mr. Ali has obviously and happily not tried to restrain. Mr. Hernández’s Romeo courts Ms. Aikens’s Juliet with such unbridled excitement that, abetted by Mayte Natalio’s perky choreography, he seems at times to be literally jumping out of his skin. His co-star is by turns gracefully ingenuous and adorably feisty — though when things start looking shaky for the couple, both bring on the post-adolescent theatrics with such force that it can almost be funny, or would be if we didn’t know how the play ends.That’s not to say this “Romeo,” which also features celebrated stage veterans such as LaChanze and Deirdre O’Connell, respectively cast as Juliet’s mother, Lady Capulet, and Nurse, looks only for the light in Shakespeare’s tragedy. The production opens with three actors robed in black, their faces hidden behind white masks shaped like the heads of goats — foreboding symbols in various cultures and contexts — surrounding a tableau of the lovers, entwined in death, enormous wings sprouting from Romeo’s back lest anyone miss the point.The ominous trio returns periodically throughout the staging, for which Mr. Ali also drew inspiration from social and political strife in our era: It’s suggested that Romeo’s family, the Montagues, are immigrants, and that this feeds the enmity between them and the Capulets. An ensemble member representing a protester holds up a banner declaring “Defund the Wall” early in the first act, while later, a group unfurls another warning “El Muro Mata,” which translates from Spanish to “The wall kills.”Mexican scholar Alfredo Michel Modenessi has also translated a good chunk of the spoken text, particularly Romeo’s and, in his exchanges with Juliet, including the famous balcony scene, hers as well. She’s trying to become more fluent in the romantic language, the better to bond with her beau, and since the gist of their conversations is well known, the back and forth isn’t disruptive. Ra’ Mya Latiah Aikens and Daniel Bravo Hernández in ‘Romeo & Juliet.’ Joan MarcusThe young leads get vibrant support from both fellow cast members and Mr Ali’s design team. In addition to the predictably glamorous LaChanze and Ms. O’Connell, who plays the Nurse with all the quirky wit you would expect, there’s Francis Jue, another long-admired trouper, bringing compassion and sometimes droll charm to Friar Lawrence, who tries in vain to rescue Romeo and Juliet from their doom.Glenn Fleshler makes a suitably imperious Lord Capulet, while Zack Lopez Roa brings an easy grace to Benvolio, Romeo’s cousin. Ariyan Kassam’s brooding Tybalt and Caleb Joshua Eberhardt’s flamboyant Mercutio, respectively, Lady Capulet’s nephew and Romeo’s friend, forge a zesty rivalry; at the preview I attended, the latter was a crowd favorite.Maruti Evans’s scenic design is at once alluring and ominous, with crosses springing up from the stage as if to suggest a mass grave. Christopher Akerlind, likewise, ensures that the stage is always beautifully lit, though the candles that fill it towards the end only underline an encroaching darkness. Oana Botez’s costumes mix elegance with flash; for the Capulets’ ball, she swathes the performers in bright color, glitter, and feathers, with towering headdresses that evoke a carnival celebration.There are a few corny and overzealous touches along the way, but then teenage romance, you’ll surely recall, can breed outsize emotions. This “Romeo & Juliet” emphasizes that as heartily as any I can remember seeing.

‘Romeo & Juliet’ Ignites Central Park

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