Hollywood star Orlando bloom was on Broadway last night, making his debut in a new production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.
The production was announced back in April, with Tony nominee Condola Rashad as the Lord of the Rings actor’s Juliet. It is being staged at the Richard Rodgers Theatre and is directed by David Leveaux, who chose to stage it in a modern setting.
Critics gave the show a mixed reception, notes the BBC. Although Rashad was praised for her skills and Bloom earned some positive notes, most of the criticism was targeted at the direction and staging.
The New York Times said that Bloom makes a “first-rate Broadway debut,” but criticized how the play was just to just two hours and 20 minutes. The first act is good, but “the tragic events that follow pass in such an anticlimactic blur that when our hero and heroine finally off themselves, it’s hard to feel bereft.”
Times critic Ben Brantley also targeted Jesse Poleshuck, whose set designs suggest “a contemporary Italian city long past its Renaissance glory days, the show has a certain elegant sparseness. Yet it also feels overstuffed — visually, aurally and conceptually.”
The New York Daily News’ Joe Dziemianowicz gave it three out of five stars. “The tricked-out but tepid revival of Shakespeare’s tragedy starts off with a bang, literally. The din jolts theatergoers to full attention and sets the scene for high-stakes drama,” he wrote. “Alas, no such luck.”
Tom Wicker of the U.K. Telegraph found that the two leads are “sweet together but their relationship lacks the spark that would make the tragedy of their situation really blaze.”
Romeo & Juliet runs through Jan. 12.
image: NBC