Should Romeo woo Juliet or should he court Rosaline? This is just the first of three major life decisions left up to an audience vote at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Ann and Shawn Fraistat’s Romeo & Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending, a hilariously clever new take on a centuries-old classic.

It’s clear from the get-go that despite a goodly chunk of the original Shakespearean text remaining intact, this R&J won’t be anything like any R&J you’ve seen before.

Take for instance when Romeo Montague (Kalond Irlanda) runs into his cousin Benvolio (Javon Willis) early on, and Romeo’s entirely Elizabethan “Ay me! Sad hours seem long. Was it my father that send thee hither in such awful haste,” is greeted by a “Nay, ‘twas motherfucking Tybalt.”

And things remain the same delectable mix of Shakespeare and Saturday Night Live when Romeo’s bff Mercutio (Damian Luciano) shows up to announce, “I come bearing good tidings! And access to free booze.”

Said exchange takes place just before Mercutio reveals the ingenious “device” by which he and his friends will slip unrecognized into the ball being held by the Montagues’ mortal enemies. “No Capulet will know thy sullen face,” he informs Romeo, “once there atop thy trembling lip is placed this bold and dashing ‘stache!”

And so, matching fake mustaches in place, the three amigos head off to the evening’s fête, and the audience is given the first of three chances to vote.

“Tell me with whom I should throw in my lot!” Romeo asks us. “Rosaline, or this girl whose name I know not.” (That would be Juliet, in case you’re wondering.)

The opening weekend matinee audience picked Rosaline (Kirsten Helen Hansen), and the ensuing events led to a second vote as to whether Romeo ought to break up a fight between Tybalt (Garret Kinstler) and Benvolio, or fight in Benvolio’s stead.

Had we opted for Romeo to choose Juliet (Mirai), however, the vote would have been on whether Romeo should defend his honor by fighting Tybalt, or withdraw for Juliet’s sake.

Not only does Romeo & Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending offer eight possible final scenes, by my calculation there are fifteen possible versions of the play in all.

And a total of twenty-five different scenes, each of which takes Romeo & Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending in an entirely new direction. Talk about a feat of imagination by the Fraistat siblings!

And if that weren’t already mind-boggling enough, cast members have had to commit to memory twenty-five different scenes, adding up to a four-hour play if performed in its entirety and not merely the seventy-to-ninety-minute show audiences will be seeing at any given time.

In other words, if ever a cast were deserving of combat pay, the Romeo & Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending players deserve just that as does ace director T.S. Barrios.

Irlanda makes for the dreamiest and most spirited of Romeos, Luciano is dashing as can be as Mercutio, Willis’s Benvolio is a major laugh-getter, and Kinstler scores in multiple roles, in particular as a decidedly full of himself Paris.

 Mirai’s Juliet proves a captivating charmer and Hansen not only delights as Rosaline, in the version I saw she got to dress up like a man in a tip of the hat to As You Like It’s Rosalind.

Ariella Salinas Fiore is a hoot in as many as four different roles including Juliet’s Nurse, and producer Melodie S. Rivers ably completes the cast as Lady Capulet.

Aiden Mella (lighting) and Hollister Starrett (sound) have essentially designed a four-hour production, to perfection I might add; Marlee Candell has confectioned a bunch of elegant Elizabethan outfits; and fight choreographer Joel D. Castro has come up with multiple high-energy duels depending on who fights whom.

 Natalie Kahn alternates with Fiore as Nurse et al. Branda Lock is dramaturg and Melanie Anthony is resident dramaturg. RachaelMaye Aronoff is production stage manager. Rehearsal stage manager Bouket Fingerhut-Grant is assistant stage manager. Fiore is intimacy director and Haruna Yamamoto is sound board operator. William Wilday is technical director.

With tickets a steal at a mere fifteen dollars, and the Morgan-Wixson offering major discounts on return visits, Romeo & Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending is not only a production well worth checking out. You’ll likely find yourself wanting to see it more than once, and maybe even more than twice. It’s that inventive and fun.

Morgan-Wixson Theatre, 2627 Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica.
www.morgan-wixson.org

–Steven Stanley
August 14, 2022
Photos: Joel D. Castro

Tags: Ann and Shawn Fraistat, Los Angeles Theater Review, Morgan-Wixson Theatre