LONDON — Pity Peter Parker.
Like a fly caught in a web, Tom Holland, the British actor who plays Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is trapped in a woeful West End production of “Romeo & Juliet.”
The stripped-down Shakespeare show is a dreary and pretentious slog that’s about as passionate as an economics lecture.
At times, I actually longed for a bit of game theory to spice things up.
But because of Holland’s superhero star power, the play is one of London’s hottest tickets.
The three-month run almost completely sold out before anybody saw it, and the few seats that remain are going for as much as $440 a pop.
If you want to go gawk at a celebrity, be my guest. But Ambien is cheaper.
The blame for the wreckage doesn’t fall on Holland — he’s perfectly fine.
The 28-year-old actor is committed (even if, in his somber intensity, he confuses Romeo for Hamlet) and has a respectable grasp of the classical language.
Having played the title role in the musical “Billy Elliot” early on in his career, he’s no stranger to the boards.
Importantly, Holland has chemistry with Francesca Amewudah-Rivers — as much as they’re allowed to have anyway — who makes a particularly forthright Juliet.
No, the Green Goblin here is Jamie Lloyd, the director known on Broadway for spare stagings of “A Doll’s House” with Jessica Chastain, “Betrayal” with Tom Hiddleston, and the incoming (and excellent) musical “Sunset Boulevard” starring Nicole Scherzinger.
Predictably, his latest show is a grab bag of his favorite tricks: Live video screens, black clothes and ceaseless whispering at the expense of emotion and drama.
Before “Romeo and Juliet” starts, and during intermission, the Duke of York Theatre’s lights are dimmed — a woman next to me used her cellphone flashlight to read the program — and the house is pumped full of loud “nntz! nntz” club music.
I asked an employee how audience members have reacted to the oppressively thumping tunes.
“They’ve cried!” the worker said.
Lucky them.
I shed zero tears during this should-be tragedy about two infatuated youngsters torn apart by a longstanding family quarrel.
From start to finish, the production trades love and ferocity for bells and whistles.
In fair Verona where we lay our scene, there are not only two households both alike in dignity — there are two video cameras both alike in pointlessness.
Operators film the actors while they’re onstage (or outside and in the lobby) and their faces are then blown up on a giant screen.
This struck me as odd, because the public frequently has the opportunity to view Holland on IMAX, but hardly ever in-person at the theater.
That $440 should give them intimacy — not a cold and distancing movie.
Anyway, the technique has no storytelling logic, evokes nothing and muddles events.
The night I went, the feed broke down a couple of times.
More mind-numbing, for a solid chunk of the second act, the actors stand face-forward and talk quietly at a glacial pace into microphones.
Like zombies who got radio hosting gigs at NPR.
Considering poison, daggers and death factor in, it’s a rather off-kilter choice to soothe the audience to sleep.
Despite his “Sunset Boulevard” winning seven Olivier Awards in April, Lloyd isn’t exactly winning over his West End colleagues.
“‘Romeo & Juliet’ will hopefully hasten the end of the recent fashion of turning live theater into a stylish, quasi-cinematic experience, hung on a popular star and a well-known title,” said a London theater source.
“No attention is paid to either the text or the author’s original intentions — merely flashy ‘look at me’ staging.”
Added a West End wag: “Two and a half hours of my life that I will never get back. But it did give me time to mentally redecorate my home!”
A source also said Lloyd is in talks to direct a double-bill of Shakespeare plays at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane later in the year — with one of them possibly starring Tom Hiddleston.
That should give my source long enough to plan a whole kitchen remodel.
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