REVIEW: Playful performances abound in brisk High Park Romeo & Juliet
iPhoto caption: Praneet Akilla and Lili Beaudoin in 'Romeo & Juliet.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Canadian Stage’s 2025 High Park production of Romeo & Juliet deftly captures the awkwardness of young love. Breaking off from their first kiss, the titular lovers appear endearingly nervous: Romeo (Praneet Akilla) lets out an overloud whoop, as if cooling himself off, before Juliet (Lili Beaudoin) scuttles toward the exit with a giggle.
Later, the balcony scene — which in many productions takes on a flatly reverent cadence — renders Romeo as humorously clumsy, with his abrupt nighttime arrival so shocking Juliet that she falls briefly backward, out of sight. The tone wouldn’t be out of place in a Disney Channel coming-of-age movie.
Shakespeare’s tragic plot means this lightness eventually gives way to violence. But the performances remain textured throughout, with the actors finding fresh details in and around the play’s well-trodden lines. The larger conceptual ideas motivating director-adaptor Marie Farsi’s one hour and 45 minute production sometimes feel underbaked, but these vibrant performances combine with brisk pacing to result in one of the strongest High Park Shakespeare productions since the pandemic.
While Farsi sets the play in interwar Italy, the immense political tumult of that era remains largely subtextual. Farsi’s director’s note says that she aims to “excavate the play’s darker core,” but I actually found the production less gritty and violent than most. The considerable danger of the Capulet-Montague conflict instead lurks beneath the beauty of ivied walls (designed by Sim Suzer), piazza ballads (sung by Matthew G. Brown and Diego Matamoros), and prim 1930s/’40s dress (also Suzer).
The time period creeps up in a handful of added lines — including, most memorably, one that references “espressos held aloft in idleness,” an idea made all the more evocative by Mercutio (Dan Mousseau) eventually using his pinky to lick up the caffeinated dregs. I saw the production twice, and was interested to find the atmosphere richer when sitting in the first couple of rows; the actors often toss out one-word Italian ad libs, but somewhat under their breath, so I missed them when farther back.
(For the record, one of the performances I viewed was opening night, when the pre-show speech was interrupted by a protest against the production accepting funds from the Azrieli Foundation, echoing a similar demonstration at Luminato Festival last month.)
Farsi nails the High Park assignment of making Shakespeare breezy and accessible. Particularly helpful is the choice to have Brown, who plays Friar John — a tiny character in the original that here accompanies Friar Lawrence (Matamoros) throughout — deliver the play’s iconic prologue, and then, in added speeches, clearly narrate what’s happening in the plot. He delivers an epilogue that’s far more straightforward than the original’s digressive (but very Shakespearean) final scene.
The titular duo is ace. Through voice cracks and flailing limbs, Akilla exudes a glorious dorkiness, underlining Romeo’s youthful inexperience. And the emotionally attentive Beaudoin — who spoofed the same character in Monster Theatre’s Juliet: A Revenge Comedy at the 2022 Toronto Fringe Festival — bolts around with giddiness. The breathlessness of the duo’s combined energy makes the lovers’ near-instantaneous attraction as credible as reasonably plausible, powering both the play’s comic and tragic elements.
Brash Mercutio often finds himself in verbal duels, and Mousseau navigates them in an excellently fleet-footed manner; as his character’s puns jab, the actor’s body weaves and darts. A supreme playfulness reigns. Kids at recess, he and Benvolio (Meilie Ng) seem — until reality inevitably swoops in, vulture-like.
Beneath these sparks, the interwar setting functions primarily as a fun context; if the production’s saying something specific about fascism, it’s pretty hard to access.
My favourite memory of this Romeo & Juliet occurred on opening night, and had nothing to do with the updated setting. Halfway through the production, during a well-known monologue, Beaudoin’s Juliet passionately calls out: “Bring in cloudy night immediately… Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night / Give me my Romeo.” Thanks to the show’s 8 p.m. start time, the sun’s glow had just disappeared from the sky — and around these lines, the night came to life, answering Juliet’s plea by shaking the surrounding trees with mighty gusts. Only in the park!
Romeo & Juliet runs in High Park from July 13 to August 31. Tickets are available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
Liam Donovan
Liam is Intermission’s senior editor. He lives in Toronto. His Substack newsletter is available at loamdonovan.substack.com.
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