Why ‘& Juliet' is the smartest dumb musical you need to watch

San Francisco Chronicle​

4 days ago

The Backstreet Boys' 'I Want It That Way' might have made teeny boppers lose their minds a quarter-century ago, but the Grammy-nominated track might have finally self-actualized as duet by a playwriting couple haggling over how a show should end. (Apologies to Nick Carter et al. and my seventh-grade peers, but it's true.)
Likewise, did you know that Bon Jovi's 'It's My Life' is secretly an anthem for coming back from the dead? Or that Britney Spears' 'I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman' is a tremulous ballad of self-discovery for a nonbinary person daring to envision, reckon with and claim their identity?
The production is anchored by two generative constraints: One, Anne Hathaway (Teal Wicks) insists that her husband William Shakespeare (Corey Mach) rewrite 'Romeo and Juliet' so that its heroine (Rachel Simone Webb) doesn't kill herself at the end but gets to go on adventures, exercise agency and learn how to own her choices. And two, she's propelled on her journey by the incomparable pop catalog of Swedish composer Max Martin, with its earnest relatability and devilish hooks.
In scene after scene, that premise plays like a theatrical round of pop music bingo. You wonder what bit of Billboard 100 ubiquity the dialogue is teeing up, and then when the first notes of Ariana Grande or Katy Perry strike, the first person in the audience to audibly recognize it wins.
But everyone else wins, too, when P! nk and Demi Lovato hits reveal themselves in a new context, appreciating anew just how sturdy yet flexible Martin's oeuvre is. The overall effect is a bit like combining 'Six' and 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical' — a pop medley gives pop feminism to the Renaissance.
Let's be clear: Pop and musical theater are different art forms. When we turn on the radio, we want something easy on the ears, that can fade into the background. Here, vocal flatness can be a virtue; it doesn't call too much attention to itself or demand much of its listener.
So to hear conservatory-trained voices give shape, shading and heft to familiar tunes also offers a new way to relish what's special about bursting into song onstage.
As Juliet absconds with a band of friends to Paris, where new star-crossed loves await, Webb gives her a voice with the depth of a cavern with many secret chambers of pools. Nick Drake, playing her nonbinary BFF, May, sings with both a feathery tenderness and a bristly inborn drama. Meanwhile, Wicks gives each note a beginning, middle and end of yearning, like a mom brushing the tangles out of your hair with loving firmness.
Comedic chops are just as well honed.
Michael Canu as a himbo gives simple ideas the soul-deep focus that's only possible when you have one precious brain cell. Mateus Leite Cardoso as the geeky François, Juliet's potential new match, uses a vocal fry whine to delightful effect; it's the nebbish's only defense against the forces of fate. As Lance, François' father, Paul-Jordan Jansen deploys an accent so cheesy that melted brie might actually be lining his vocal cords.
Perhaps inevitably, '& Juliet' can feel like an overstuffed grab bag of romcom and pop music formulas. Tug at its easy girl power politics ever so slightly, and the seams unravel, revealing a narrative as safe and tidy as any Hollywood drivel.
Formulas get a bad rap, but the thing is, they work. They release our inner pressure valves, quench our cravings. '& Juliet' works best when it embraces exactly how dumb those old tricks are. The Backstreet Boys should not be able to patch up a marriage, and yet they do — and we want them to — sure as a pop song returns to its I chord.