Seattle Immersive Theatre's 'Romeo and Juliet'

When I saw the ad for Seattle Immersive Theater's "Romeo and Juliet" in a program, my first thought was, "Seattle has an Immersive Theater and I haven't heard of it yet? I have to go!" Breaking down the fourth wall between the actors and the audience is not a new concept in theater, but in recent years some exciting new approaches to the idea have been popping up all over and definitely here in Seattle.

If you have not experienced immersive theater, you need to change your expectations of what it means to see a show. Good shoes and comfortable clothes are a must, with little or nothing to carry in your hands. In the case of "Romeo and Juliet," dress warmly because the show is performed in an old abandoned record store.

Rather than milling around in a lobby, on arrival you'll be ushered into the setting for the masquerade ball where you can buy drinks, nibble on chocolate and select your mask for the evening. Once the show begins, you will follow the actors from room to room on their cues. The audience wears masks throughout to maintain the sense of anonymous onlookers.

There are two intermissions that are really part of the social scenes in the play. During that time you can drink the free champagne and coffee and eat little savory and sweet snacks. The actors only interact with the audience to move them from place to place or keep them safe during more active scenes.

In some ways, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" is well designed for an immersive experience since it brings the experience of the play back down into the realm of the people. When the audience hears something happening in one area, it moves intuitively towards the action. The audience has a great deal of freedom of motion.

Directed by Emily Penick, this production is also different in that it does some interesting gender bending. Don't look for typical casting here. Juliet (Katherine Jett) is wooed by a Romeo (Marianna de Fazio) who binds his breasts. Jett plays Juliet as a sweet young girl just coming into her own sexuality, and de Fazio is a loving but impulsive Romeo.

Romeo's friends Benvolio (Lorenzo Roberts) and Mercutio (Ryan Higgins) are rowdy and irreverent, while Tybalt (Melissa Topscher) on the Montague side can dress to the nines in feminine drag but with a trash-talking swagger.

I particularly enjoyed how matter of fact the production was about the irrelevance of gender. Pronouns changed occasionally for no particular reason, as did the style of dress. For example, Juliet's nurse (Carter Rodriguez) was referred to by both male and female pronouns, and while he sometimes gave the nurse a queer and queenly manner, we still saw the nurse always as the devoted and loving servant of Juliet, quite appropriately aiding her in her dress.

Friar Lawrence (Devin Bannon) never comments on the genders of Romeo and Juliet as he helps them marry and later plans for their escape.

The set, designed by Paul Thomas, uses the space well and is full of detail. Much of the action takes place in an outdoor courtyard set in the center of the building where the production takes place, with Juliet's home, the church and Romeo's post-banishment hotel found through doors from the courtyard. During the scenes in the courtyard and the Montague family ballroom, the audience is free to wander wherever they'd like.

For the famous balcony scene we stand down in the courtyard with Romeo while he calls up to his love. As Mercutio dies, we hesitate to cluster in close around him. When Romeo and Juliet first meet at the masquerade, we could be sitting or standing anywhere in the ballroom, sipping champagne, catching a glimpse of the action from the corner of our eyes.

Juliet's bedroom, decorated with posters of rock stars and fashion photos, has bench seating along the walls so that we can eavesdrop on the private action there, and while in church we sit in pews, of course.

Each separate area creates a different feeling and it's lovely at the end to be sitting in our church pews gazing at the bodies of Romeo, Juliet and Paris in reverent silence until the cast comes back in to take their bows. No matter how many times we've seen the play, we always hope for a different end to the star-crossed lovers.

If you're ready to spend a good amount of time standing, this production will allow you to experience Shakespeare in a very unique, and uniquely beautiful, way.

"Romeo and Juliet" runs through Apr. 15 at Seattle Immersive Theatre, location disclosed upon purchase, in Seattle. For information or tickets, visit http://www.seattleimmersivetheatre.org.