For those whose ears reject the baroque pentameter of Shakespeare’s language but who still like to sip every now and then from the cup of classic literature, the Allen Summer Youth Theatre group has got a musical for you.
The group delivers its final performance of “Jump ‘N’ Jive Juliet” — a riff on “Romeo and Juliet” — tonight at 7:30 at the Allen College Theatre. Admission is free.
Spiced with just enough poetry to keep your parents happy, this fast-paced, hour-long ensemble comedy stays aloft on the winds of its exultant choreography, rapid-fire dialogue and enormous overall charm.
“Jump ‘N’ Jive” takes all of the dark strains of Shakespeare’s original — the “star-cross’d,” “misadventur’d,” “death-mark’d” teens as well as their morally defective families — and replaces it with belly laughs and the upbeat tinkle of swing-time music.
Set in 1940s Venice Beach, Calif., the premise is simple: Mr. Montague and his son Ron have booked the local community center for an upcoming jitterbug contest. Mr. Capulet and his daughter Juliet have booked the same community center at the same time for a rehearsal of “Romeo and Juliet.” It’s a bad case of double-booking, and it falls to Ron and Juliet to fix the logistical pickle.
Will the entire farrago resolve itself in the form of one giant Montague-Capulet coming-together curtain-closing jitterbug extravaganza? It’s hard to say. You’ll have to see the show tonight to find out.
But what’s certain is the champion caliber of the “Jump ‘N’ Jive” cast.
Gaby Lampe as Juliet Capulet is a force. In addition to her gifts as an actor and dancer, the incoming Iola High School sophomore has a preposterously good singing voice.
Whereas Shakespeare’s Juliet pulls lines like these out of her somber guts — “Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, / That sees into the bottom of my grief?” — our Juliet says things like, “Come on people, let’s dance!” Still, I know who I’d rather share a Coke with. Lampe as Juliet is a total joy to watch.
The Elizabethan stage — the crown jewel of popular entertainment in the late 16th century — might have achieved even greater luster had more of Shakespeare’s characters been named “Ron.” As it is, we had to wait for “Jump ‘N’ Jive Juliet” to meet Ron Montague. Ron is played with po-faced appeal by the hugely talented River Hess, who dances across the stage in his period-specific high-water pants and argyle sweater as the show’s utterly convincing romantic male lead.
Mr. Montague and Mr. Capulet, the precipitating padres of this crosstown contretemps, are played by Tony Piazza and Justin Appleton.
Piazza, who in dark suit and battered fedora looks a little like a poor man’s Harry Lime, carries his grudge against his longtime rival so near to his senses that the mere mention of Capulet’s name produces in him, every single time, a spasm of red-faced apoplexy. Piazza is an experienced professional stage actor — and it shows — as well as this play’s director. His counterpart in fuming fatherhood, Mr. Capulet, portrayed by Appleton as an iron fist of a man for most of the musical’s 60 minutes has, by musical’s end, been changed into a velvet glove.
Were there an entry fee, Austin Morris’s performance as streetwise Spider Johnson, the Runyonesque shyster with the silver tongue and two-toned shoes, would alone be worth the price of admission.
The hornswoggling lawyer Barb Gregory is played with wolfish duplicity by Allie Fager. Lexie Vega is magnetic as Mr. Montague’s owlish assistant, who finds on the stage an essential outlet for her creative side. Amanda Moore plays the imperious mayor of Venice Beach, who is trailed from scene to scene by the “Yes People” — two empty-headed, smile-happy stooges who affirm every pronouncement the Mayor ever utters (Josie Plumlee and Jie Jie Burleson give hilarious life to these ditzy sycophants). Carolyn Appleton uncorks a tremendous cockney accent in her role as Judy, the house cleaner who, it turns out, leads an important double life.
If your life at the moment requires the palliative attention of song and dance, of laughter and love, of youth and vigor — and whose sluggish life doesn’t? — then make sure to see the utterly enjoyable “Jump ‘N’ Jive Juliet” at 7:30. Tonight only.
