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Kissing by the Book: Connor and Zegler in Romeo & Juliet
A production that’s all shimmer with little grasp of Shakespeare’s words. (Plus: The silly joys of Drag: The Musical.)
The in-the-round scenic design by dots is essentially a club — dance floor in the center, DJ pulpit on one side (Sarah Goldstone, the show’s musician, is housed there), and another raised platform with an enormous pink teddy bear (because why not) on the other. If there are no real adults in this world — and there certainly don’t seem to be — what does it actually matter when Gabby Beans (who doubles as Romeo’s friend Mercutio and as his mentor Friar Lawrence) enters with a microphone to threaten the brawlers with death should they “disturb our streets again”? The queens aren’t the only standouts: Eddie Korbich is a hoot as Drunk Jerry, that one particular old guy at the club who’s high as a hot-air balloon and wants to tell you all about the time he was in London in June of ’69, and J. Elaine Marcos absolutely kills her cameos as three different plot devices in human form, from a sadistic IRS agent to a gentrifying terror named Rita LaRitz whose ludicrously capacious bag is almost as big as she is.
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