Review: “A Tender Thing” has its U.S. premiere in the Berkshires at Barrington Stage Company

When I see a play with which I am unfamiliar, I try to go in tabula rasa, without having read much about the work, so I can see it with fresh eyes. In keeping with this practice, all I knew about A Tender Thing, the U.S. premiere of a play by British playwright Ben Power originally staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2009, was that it’s a “what if” play — in this case, what if Romeo and Juliet had lived and loved through decades together. Which sounded like a fun — if a bit facile — premise. 

What I should have realized is that playwright Power might be constitutionally incapable of producing anything facile. He’s an acclaimed writer for theater, film, and television whose adaptation of The Lehman Trilogy garnered him the Tony Award for Best New Play in 2022. His body of work demonstrates scholarly tendencies. So when Romeo enters the stage, agitatedly commanding “Give me the light,” he’s not just asking for better illumination. He’s uttering a line that comes near the end of Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo enters Juliet’s crypt after she has poisoned (but not killed) herself. It soon becomes clear to the audience that Shakespeare’s words — remixed, reordered, and repurposed — comprise the text of the entire play. It’s an extraordinary intellectual feat.

The lights rise, literally and figuratively, with Romeo’s entrance, revealing a wan, motionless, sickly Juliet (played by Candy Buckley, seen last summer at Barrington Stage Company as a Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret) stiffly propped up in a platform bed. We also observe that the couple has apparently done quite well for themselves; they live in a swank apartment, stylishly minimalist, with a wall of windows leading to a balcony and, beyond, an enviable ocean view. (Scenic designer Marsha Ginsberg’s restrained choices — a pair of sleek mid-century modern chairs and gray plank wall coverings that conceal drawers and doors — set a sophisticated tone.) Romeo, played by Derek Smith, rushes bedside with concern and a small bottle of what we assume, given the context, is poison.

Throughout the next hour and 15 minutes, we see scenes that sketch a long-lived relationship between the Bard’s star-cross’d lovers, who speak to each other in the familiar dialog, the lines stitched together in a way that illuminates the text, shining new light on themes and metaphors that course through the original play. This remix works to tell a new tale of aging lovers, one of whom is afflicted by a debilitating illness, and both of whom are considering ending their lives.

Juliet’s deterioration is succinctly and effectively portrayed in a montage of scenes. Vital and vibrant in a violet power suit and serious heels, she confidently strides across the stage, but in a softer costume she stumbles, and in quick succession succumbs to the need for a cane, a walker, a wheelchair. The two discuss their love and their fate with resequenced and reassigned passages from the original play (and even a song from Twelfth Night) in a different context, which gives the words new meaning and import.

Though the lovers have led a rich, passionate life together, this play remains a tragedy. Due to the inevitability of fact of death, there is no happily ever after; all lovers will suffer when one of them leaves this mortal coil. Deftly directed by Aaron Paul, BSC’s artistic director in his sophomore year, Smith and Buckley convey the passionate love between Romeo and Juliet and the harrowing decisions they must make as her disease pushes them toward assisted suicide. Sometimes we wonder how we ever accepted such wise and oft-jaded words coming from the mouths of the original young lovers… they can seem more appropriate from lovers who have lived long lives together. Regardless, whether they died young as in the original or old in this “what if” scenario, their destiny remains the same.

The drama is enhanced by Fabian Obispo’s adept sound design, bringing us waves crashing on the shore and the music to which the lovers occasionally dance. Solid lighting design by Robert Wiersel, alarmingly marks changes in mood, tone, and the characters’ health, which is also conveyed by their stylized movement, for which Mayte Natalio deserves credit.

Berkshire audiences include a goodly number of aging theatergoers, and the production surely provokes profound empathy for the characters. One can’t help but imagine oneself in similar circumstances. However, the textual structure of A Tender Thing, by its nature, creates a bit of emotional distance. Anyone familiar with the original play cannot stop thinking about where the lines come from, and which character originally spoke them. At times, this can remove the viewer from the action and dampen the pathos.

Fortunately, the play pulls off an emotionally stunning turn at the end, bringing us to the initial meeting of Romeo and Juliet, in mien and dialog. After all we’ve seen, it’s both heartbreaking and cathartic. And it makes one ponder, after the traumatic end-of-life story we’ve witnessed, whether or not — as Romeo and Mercutio debate in the original — love really is a tender thing.

Barrington Stage Company’s production of A Tender Thing runs at the St. Germain Stage in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, through July 20.