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You could blame about anything short of global warming or tainted tomatoes for the sad fate of Romeo and Juliet, the Shakespearean newlyweds who wind up booking a tomb for their honeymoon.

It could be the fault of their warring families, or their own rash actions, or the risky schemes (to borrow from Al Gore) of that mad pastor, Friar Laurence. Or it could be – as Richard Seer, director of the Old Globe's just-opened staging of the tragedy, has proposed – the very purity of the couple's love, which can only exist beyond a world of compromise.

Well, here's pointing the finger at an easier target: Romeo's buddy, Mercutio. The title's two lovers may be “star-crossed” from the start, as the play tells us, but this mercurial troublemaker gives cosmic destiny a good shove by picking a pivotal fight with Juliet's cousin, Tybalt. Much of the play's bad mojo flows from that little dustup, which eventually bequeaths a parade of Verona's best and brightest to the dust.

It so happens that this wisecracking catalyst for catastrophe, as portrayed by Owiso Odera, is about the most sparkling part of what otherwise tends to be an unremarkable, even routine Globe staging of Shakespeare's iconic play.

Continue reading this Union-Tribune article here.

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