Roméo et Juliette
Pacific Northwest Ballet
McCaw Hall, March 14, 2025

The premiere of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Roméo et Juliette on April 11 at McCaw Hall was a wonderfully romantic evening. The audience was all dressed up in the Seattle manner — everything from furs to sneakers — and the lush, romantic music by Sergei Prokofiev, together with Jean-Christophe Maillot’s youthful choreography, formed the perfect setting for PNB’s marvelous dancers.

Though most of us are familiar with the plot of Shakespeare’s original story, written in the 16th century and set in 14th-century Verona, it always seems modern — at least enough to make us glad we have more personal choice than the Capulets and the Montagues of old. Yet as many times as it has been updated — from West Side Story to Runaway Robots — we never tire of seeing the delightful discoveries of the young lovers and the heartbreaking collapse of their hopes.

At PNB, all of these feelings transfixed the audience as the curtain rose on scenic designer Ernest Pignon-Ernest’s somewhat abstract version of the Verona town square, where young Capulets and Montagues taunt one another. As the raucous scene slowly turns from fun to edgy to threatening, the stage is set for the forbidden love between Roméo Montague (Lucien Postlewaite) and Juliette Capulet (Clara Ruf Maldonado).

One of the hallmarks of Malliot’s vision is to cast everyone as young, even the elderly characters traditionally presented as Shakespeare described them: foolish or in their dotage. The role of the nurse, played with youthful humor and mild befuddlement by Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan, made this key character an agreeable girlfriend to Juliette rather than a fussy babysitter. Lady Capulet is usually portrayed as a dignified noblewoman, but, in Malliot’s view, she is a young mother whose intensity, as performed by the dramatic Elle Macy, had a Martha Graham–like quality of despair.

The role of Friar Laurence departed from Shakespeare’s story the most dramatically. Instead of an elderly monk whose doddering pace unwittingly causes the final tragedy, this Friar Laurence — played by the vibrantly handsome Christopher D’Ariano — is the bearer of metaphors, acting out with elegantly gestural dances the subtexts of joy, tragedy, and loss. Mailot’s insight here makes for visual poetry of a high order — a new interpolation that I believe The Bard himself would approve of.

On opening night, the role of Roméo was wonderfully danced by Postlewaite — who was only 24 years old when he was first cast in this part — while Juliette was danced by the lovely, lively Maldonado, whose enthusiastic heroine brought a touch of contemporary delight to a part that is usually played as shy girl confused by Roméo’s advances. These two dancers had such joyous energy in their balcony pas de deux that you could feel the entire audience cheering them on. Their marvelous chemistry made the final scene in the tomb all the more heartbreaking.

While Prokofiev created symphonic suites for orchestral performances of Roméo et Juliette, the ballet has been choreographed by 18 different dance makers since its premiere in 1938 — including John Cranko, Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Rudolf Nureyev, Peter Martins, and Seattle’s own Mark Morris. I’ve seen three of these productions and more online but am completely sold on Maillot’s beautifully energetic interpretation. Costume designer Jéröme Kaplan maintained the literal sense of a Shakespearean past, while the dance vocabulary and humor bypassed politics and focused entirely on human joy and suffering. What a welcome revival of the best dance version of this timeless favorite!

Pacific Northwest Ballet presents “Roméo et Juliette” at McCaw Hall through April 20. Go to https://pnb.org for tickets and information.