ROMEO & JULIET Returns To The Park — Review

For any New York theater director, few challenges are greater than tackling Shakespeare in the Park. Dense language, performed in an outdoor setting, on that vast Delacorte stage—the beloved summer tradition is also a beast of a task. Lean too big, and you overwhelm the text; too modest, you risk getting swallowed up by that vibrant Central Park milieu. 

No path is more fatal, though, than failing to commit to any strong choices at all. That’s the sad fate that has befallen director Saheem Ali’s confused new production of Romeo & Juliet, running through June 28 to kick off the Public Theater’s summer season at the Delacorte. 

It’s a shame, because Ali’s concept holds some promise. The director has placed Shakespeare’s legendary tragedy at the US/Mexico border wall, framing the warring Montague/Capulet families as two opposing definitions of American identity. The Capulets are deferential to the state, all speaking in English; while the Montagues, mostly Latino and resisting ICE (off-stage, chiefly), tend to converse in Spanish. 

Where placing the two clans on opposite sides of the wall might have contradicted the text, Ali’s approach here makes sense. Montagues and Capulets are battling needlessly, stirred into hatred towards an “other” not so different from themselves. So when sweetly young Romeo (Daniel Bravo Hernández) and enchanting Juliet (Ra’mya Latiah Aikens) connect in Spanish, it’s a moving bridging of worlds. Saddened as I was to personally lose some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful language in the titular lovers’ courtship—chiefly the iconic balcony scene, little of which is spoken in English—the notion makes sense, and at first proves stirring. 

But that initial clarity of intent quickly gives way to vagueness. The role of the state is underexplored in Ali’s concept, while the physical threat of ICE is deployed inconsistently. Whenever Ali’s concept doesn’t quite fit with Shakespeare’s tale, which is often, he simply jettisons it. 

That might be forgivable if the performers already had us enthralled, but this cast mostly seems adrift. Hernández and Aikens are both pleasant, but lack interiority; Caleb Eberhardt overacts as Mercutio, pushing too hard to fill the void. Only Deirdre O’Connell feels at ease, bringing a warm if jaded humor to her Nurse. 

The energy entirely deflates from this Romeo & Juliet in its inert second act. Even the production’s greatest strength, a stunning and evocative set by Maruti Evans (beautifully lit, also by Evans), also comes to represent its failures: a mess of graves lining the set go uncommented on, ultimately just an idea suggesting at something, never finding specificity. 

Romeo & Juliet is now in performance at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park through June 28, 2026.