The Theater: Old Play in Manhattan, Mar. 19, 1951

Romeo and Juliet (by William Shakespeare; a Dwight Deere Wiman production) seems Jess a play, to the world at large, than a great romantic legend. To the theater, it seems less a play than a part. No one produces it out of enthusiasm for its story alone. No one goes to see it because the Romeo is good, or stays home because he isn’t. Everything centers on its not quite 14-year-old heroine; for lady stars, Juliet is a final goal and often a graveyard. There is a double hazard: the part demands the maturest art, must convey the most dewy fragrance.

For Hollywood’s Olivia de Havilland Juliet was a gallant try but a double miss. She is neither a good enough actress nor a magical enough Juliet. She never seems to feel the part—only the importance of it. She never seems in love with Romeo—only with Romeo and Juliet. She recites poetry where she should radiate it; and goes through the role as though following a score marked presto or lento, ff. or pp. It is a thoroughly modest, painstaking performance, but it just never seems to matter.

Nor is the rest of the production particularly helpful. Douglas Watson’s Romeo is a little throaty and stagy. Though not the most tragic, Mercutio’s is the most unfortunate death in the play, since it comes early and removes the one really dashing character (nicely played by Jack Hawkins). Thereafter, only true romantic intensity can save one of the least inevitable of tragedies from seeming one of the most protracted. The current production has a handsome but slightly heavy look, a slow and slightly heavy tread, and acting in every conceivable style.