SOURCE: Monji, Jana J. “Romeo Becomes a Bawdy Comedy.” Los Angeles Times (10 January 2002): F49.

In the following review, Monji maintains that the Troubadour Theater Company's production of Romeo Hall and Juliet Oates was “a wonderfully silly sendup” of Shakespeare's tragedy.

Romeo (Rick Batalla) has a wandering mustache and a mostly Italian accent. Juliet (Meleney Humphrey) is a giggly rich girl in sneakers. Juliet's mother, Lady Oates (Beth Kennedy), has a makeup job straight from the Barnum & Bailey Circus but is doing a mean mommy dearest impression. The nurse (Michelle Anne Johnson) has a curiously active chest.

Using the music of '80s pop singers Daryl Hall and John Oates, the Troubadour Theater Company has concocted an adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy that's so loose that the threads sometimes show. It's not as well-tailored as the company's 12th Dog Night or as hilariously dippy as the disco version of the...