Romeo and Juliet

WET ’N’ MILD Ambrose, left, and Isaac meet a damp, tragic end.

Photo: Michal Daniel

If all you needed to make a perfect Romeo and Juliet were an attractive pair of young lovers declaiming sensuous poetry, falling in love and coming to a tragic end, the Public Theater’s new attempt would be ideal. Sadly, in most other respects—Mark Wendland’s pointless wading-pool set, director Michael Greif’s cluttered, hectic staging and some truly bad casting in the secondary roles—this version squanders what Bardic capital the lovely Lauren Ambrose and Oscar Isaac accumulate in their key scenes.

The least you can say of bad Shakespeare is that it offers a chance to hear great language, but even that simple joy is absent with some of these actors. Thus we’re overjoyed when Tybalt (Brian Tyree Henry) is dispatched in Act III and grateful that Shakespeare didn’t give Prince Escalus (Timothy D. Stickney) more lines. On the plus side, Christopher Evan Welch delivers a febrile, bilious Mercutio, and Camryn Manheim balances bawdry with common sense as the garrulous Nurse. As Friar Lawrence, Austin Pendleton is a darling, but his stuttery, lost-in-the-moment line readings grow distracting.

But we’re here for the star-crossed hotties, right? Ambrose glows with wit and a fetching girlish nervousness, while Isaac (drably costumed) makes for a humorous, dashing Romeo. In the famous balcony scene, Isaac flings himself at the grim scaffolding bridge where Ambrose quivers excitedly, as if he wanted to tear it down with his bare hands. Both out of admiration for Ambrose and from a set-design perspective, I know exactly how he feels.