Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Chekhov takes up much of 'Uncle Romeo,' which is a blessing because as staged here, the parts from his play flow better than the ones from Shakespeare’s tragedy...Some of the juxtapositions have a humorous impact...Larger, structural changes are not entirely convincing...It’s relatively easy to follow the intertwined narrative strands — though it helps considerably to be familiar with both plays — but it’s hard not to wonder what the point is."
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"A crash-up of Chekhov and Shakespeare with an emphasis on the former: It's a vodka martini with the Bard as the vermouth. Unfortunately, this dramatic cocktail does little to bring out the shows' shared themes of passion, obsession and betrayal...Bedlam's M.O. is to crack open classic texts and discover something unexpected and resonant inside them. But beneath a few nifty performances, there's nothing at the center this time."
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“’Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet’ begins casually and ends by breaking your heart...A riff on two plays at once, Shakespeare’s youthful romantic tragedy and Chekhov’s mature and moody comedy...The brilliance of Tucker and his company is to hold up a Shakespearean mirror to Chekhov in order to unleash his oft-hidden weirdness, wildness, and yearning. In these actors’ hands...certain scenes from ‘Uncle Vanya’ played more powerfully than I’ve seen in a long time.”
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"Mr. Tucker’s 'Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet,' like even the most avant-garde of his shows, is both unpretentious and enormous fun...What Szadkowski does here is flat-out astonishing...Anyone who still questions the expressive potential of nontraditional casting should rush to see her. Everything about this show is a delight, but I bet it’s Ms. Szadkowski whom you’ll remember longest."
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"Whatever similarities Tucker saw in both these dramas, though, he has failed to communicate them in the mess of a production that has resulted...Even when the transitions from one play to another are smoothly done, Tucker's production never makes a convincing case for why these two works should be presented this way at all...God bless Bedlam for continuing to take risks with the theatrical canon, but this latest provocation is a misbegotten misstep."
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“Melding ‘Uncle Vanya’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ together requires taking the essence of the two pieces and superimposing them upon each other like interlocking puzzles. The ‘Vanya’ component, more or less, works within this structure. But ‘Romeo’ is almost absent in the process...Some ideas inevitably do not quite work out. There is no doubt, though, that Bedlam and Mr. Tucker will quickly rebound.”
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"In 'Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet,' Tucker has tried something new: a mashup of both Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' and Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' with scenes from the two alternating. The result is not confusing, but irritating and irrelevant, with neither play gaining from the combination. The advertisement for this show reads '5 actors, 2 plays, 1 performance,' but to what point?"
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"It's really more of 'Uncle Vanya' with a few scenes of 'Romeo and Juliet' thrown in, so the whole experiment feels almost like an afterthought, and the transitions between the two are sometimes awkward and confusing...It doesn't help matters that this production opens so soon after Richard Nelson's 'Uncle Vanya,' in which Jay O. Saunders gave the definitive performance of the title character...Maybe they are enjoying themselves, but they should ask themselves why the audience should care."
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“’URVJ’ can only be described as puzzling. And simply not up to Bedlam’s standards...The play’s biggest shortfall is that it simply doesn’t come off as anything more than avant-garde posturing. As a standalone play...it makes little sense...None of the intersections of the two plays do, quite frankly. And it serves to dampen both the original pieces. Rather, it feels like pompous, intellectual meddling by a company that’s bored with traditional theater and the odious project they’ve undertaken.”
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“Five doubling actors make their transitions with surprising ease and ingenuity. More importantly and to our delight, no character in either play is given short shrift...The ensemble does it all...We only have to sit back and marvel at how effortlessly we are being drawn into the co-existing dramas...This is neither a parody nor a patronizing view of these two great plays but rather invests a bit of wit and whimsy into each and into each an equal measure of pain and sorrow."
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"Pau’s adaptation of ‘Vanya’ is morose and tedious. The company fares much better with the zany ‘R&J’ portion...'Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet' was just too ambitious and it doesn’t work. With a show paced at over two and half hours, the audience needs to grasp the whys, here it just seemed like an experiment not quite completed. This original, creative, text-defying theatre company lost their way on this production."
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"For the first two thirds of 'Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet,' directed by Eric Tucker, audiences can expect a fairly straightforward interpretation of Chekhov’s masterwork...The 'Romeo and Juliet' tangents offer little in the way of emotional or intellectual illumination...If the amalgamation does not effectively serve Chekhov’s and Shakespeare’s works, the five-member ensemble tears into the material."
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"There is a lot to admire in the ambition, and there are glimpses of how the production could have been successful, but it never coheres, and we are left with no greater insight into either masterpiece...Some ambiguity in the conceit could have been effective, allowing audience members to debate and discuss afterward, but as is, it just descends into incoherence."
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