From left: Anna Kostakis plays Bernadette and Nikita Burshteyn is Romeo in the new musical Romeo and Bernadette.
It’s rare that a musical synthesizes genres and influences from popular and high culture and succeeds at integrating them all, but Romeo and Bernadette does. With book and lyrics by Mark Saltzman, and music adapted from traditional Italian melodies, this show incorporates elements of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, with a bit of The Sopranos to boot. Northern vs. southern Italian (Sicilian) class prejudices and contemporary renditions of classical Italian operas are thrown into the mix for good measure.
In 1960, Brooklyn Girl (Ari Raskin, in one of two roles), an English major, is out with Brooklyn Boy (Michael Notardonato) and attending a local production of Romeo and Juliet. He balks at the eloquence of Shakespeare’s prose and the tragic ending, but in order to impress his date, tells her, “but there’s more.” He then concocts a tale where Romeo (Nikita Burshteyn) is transported to the present.
Judy McLane (left) as Camille Penza and Troy Valjean Rucker as Roz. Photographs by Russ Rowland.
Romeo searches for and identifies his Juliet, only to find that hundreds of years later, she has become Bernadette (Anna Kostakis), the beloved daughter of Sal Penza (Carlos Lopez), the head of a crime family at war with its rivals, the Del Cantos—Don (Michael Marotta) and his son Dino (Notardonato again). Romeo, dressed in Shakespearean garb and totally at loose ends in modern Verona, where the Penzas are vacationing, is bedazzled by Bernadette, only to find her inaccessible and disinterested. To say more would be a spoiler.
The beauty of the show, directed and choreographed by Justin Ross Cohen, is that there truly is “much more,” and the “much more” advances the drama, humor, and rationale for a series of polished songs and dances to support the plot line.
Even the names of the sparring families indicate the literacy of the show’s creators. Del Canto means “of song,” and the Del Cantos are a good foil for the Penza family. Pensa, with a minor switch of “s” for “z”, relates to “think,” “consider,” “believe,” and “imagine,” all of which the plotting Penzas do. Not that the Del Cantos don’t plot, but they seem to sing and romanticize about northern Italy as much or more than Camille Penza (Judy McLane), Sal’s wife. They also bond with Romeo and defend him and his interests. Thus, in the play’s helter-skelter action and frequent shifts in alliances and loyalties, there are spoofs of Italian traditions as well as Renaissance rhetoric.
Zach Schanne (left) as Tito Titone and Carlos Lopez as mob boss Sal Penza.
There are few, if any, moments where the plot seems to slacken. When they do occur, they are quickly overtaken by fervent love songs, amusing confrontations between Bernadette’s fiancé and suitor Romeo, a raucous Italian saint’s festival, strong language, and a number of hilarious subplots. Among the latter is a dance lesson for Tito, whom Sal Penza is grooming as his future son-in-law, to succeed him as a crime lord. In the scene, the teacher (Troy Valjean Rucker) attempts at gunpoint to teach Tito the cha-cha. The bouncer/bodyguard Lips (Viet Vo) is almost court jester–like in his comic obeisance to Sal Penza.
Overall, the performances are superb. Recent BFA musical theater graduates Kostakis and Raskin excel in comedy, song, and movement. McLane, a veteran Broadway star, deserves special mention for her stylized, tragicomic characterization of a crime boss’s wife who fantasizes about her Veronese ancestry as the Swan Contessa, and wants her daughter to get out of “the business.”
When all the humor of Romeo’s archaic and awkward entry into modern society and the intricate plot twists are put aside, there is something noble and transcendent about the character here. His sincerity and the simplicity of his appeal as a romantic partner for Bernadette, as well as her refusal to opt for the “good life” with Tito, have a timelessness, universality, and a very modern message about what counts in a good romantic and marital relationship. Love may conquer all, but only certain loves endure.
The Amas Musical Theatre production of Romeo and Bernadette plays through Feb. 16 at A.R.T./NY’s Mezzanine Theater (502 West 53rd St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; matinees are at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, call (212) 563-2565 or (212) 594-5414. You may also book online at amasmusical.org.
