Mercutio’s always been the real star of Romeo and Juliet. If Billy Shakes was writing for television in 2016, I like to imagine Mercutio would get his own spin-off that would run for six critically acclaimed seasons after people inevitably got tired of those whiny teenagers with the beefing families. Unfortunately, we may never see the crime drama Mercutio: Verona Vice come to fruition.
We can see a contemporary Shakespeare adaptation in 2016, however. It looks an awful lot like the Dallas Theater Center’s production at Kalita Humphreys Theater. Elsewhere, we can see a bizarre musical comedy about cowboys, and some of the finest fashion of the Jazz Age.
The Dallas Theater Center has taken the contemporary route with its current adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. If we’re to judge the teaser trailer for the show, which features two cops investigating what appears to be a star-crossed murder-suicide, it looks like iambic pentameter is getting nowhere near this thing. (We imagine Shakespeare’s best lines will still rear rear their heads in some form.) The production runs through Valentine’s Day — of course — and on through Feb. 28 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater.
Ochre House Theatre’s new show sounds characteristically dark and surreal: Brothers’ Harvest is a musical comedy about a small town enjoying its yearly tailgate party outside the Walmart, an occasion a gang of transient cowboys takes as a wonderful opportunity to swoop in and reap what hath been sown. The production runs through Feb. 16.
It’s all the glamor of The Great Gatsby with none of the bummer moralizing about wealth and hedonism and the dark side of the American Dream. It’s “Decadence: Fashion From the 1920s,” a Roaring ’20s clothing gallery on display at the Galleria through the end of the month.
For more to do tonight, go here.
