Now comes a new production of “Romeo and Juliet” in which the most memorable bit involves a Triumph motorcycle. Orlando Bloom’s riding it, but he doesn’t make as much of an impression.
Right there is a sign the show has a confidence problem. When you have a star of Bloom’s magnitude — late of the mega-grossing movies “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Lord of the Rings” — you shouldn’t need attention-getting stunts like a vintage bike. Or live doves. Or gratuitous fire action.
This suggests that director David Leveaux isn’t sure how to hold our attention. Not that Bloom can, either. In this, his Broadway and Shakespeare debuts, the British actor is handsome but lacks stage presence. He’s game but merely competent — and less than that when he expresses anguish. The scene in which Romeo agonizes at the prospect of being banished from his beloved is excruciatingly dull.
Equally underwhelming is Condola Rashad’s one-note performance as Juliet.
This is more surprising since Rashad (Phylicia’s daughter) has been a sensitive, vivid presence in plays as diverse as “Ruined,” “Stick Fly” and, most recently, “The Trip to Bountiful.”
Here she communicates Juliet’s girlish innocence and sensual awakening through wide-open eyes and a constant beatific grin. This goes a short way.
Bloom and Rashad embody Leveaux’s big idea: The warring Montague and Capulet families are, respectively, white and black.
The opening scene shows some of their more hotheaded members brawling in a gang fight in front of a crumbling, graffiti-covered mural in Jesse Poleshuck’s overly spare set. But mostly the biracial concept doesn’t really impact the show.
Indeed, for a production with such a strong conceit, coherence is in short supply.
The ever-reliable Jayne Houdyshell has a good-natured gruffness as Juliet’s nurse, her casting a nifty twist on the usual situation of black nannies looking after white kids. Even so, Leveaux gives her a bicycle with a baguette in the carrying basket, which makes her look like an extra in a BBC drama set during WWII.
Equally impressive and just as incongruous is Roslyn Ruff as Lady Capulet, Juliet’s mother.
Sporting a sleeveless gown that showcases impressively sculpted guns, Ruff (remarkable in “The Piano Lesson”) emits a ferocious energy. Never mind that she feels as if she were beamed in from a different universe — a Greek tragedy, maybe, or “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”
The most mesmerizing of the lot is Christian Camargo. As Romeo’s disenchanted, provocateur pal, Mercutio, he languidly delivers his razor-sharp lines. It’s as if the character was fatigued by life itself — yet he energizes the stage whenever he’s on.
And he doesn’t even need to ride a motorcycle.