Gabby Beans discusses the ‘oppressive and violent’ world of ‘Romeo + Juliet’ and starring opposite the ‘absolutely brilliant’ Kit Connor
“Romeo and Juliet has featured in my life at these pivotal moments in a really funny way,” Gabby Beans smiles as she considers all the times she has crossed paths with one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies.
The actress first read the play as a freshman in high school in Germany and credits her English teacher, Emily Richardson, for elucidating “the imagery and all the levels of resonance that Shakespeare’s writing can hold and evokes.” Months later, her family took a trip to Italy and she saw the Juliet sculpture in Verona. Years later, she played the role of Lady Capulet while studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Most recently, she wrapped a smash production of Romeo + Juliet on Broadway, which played a limited run at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Beans recently joined Gold Derby to discuss the revival.
The latest Broadway production, under the direction of Tony winner Sam Gold, featured Beans in the doubled role of Mercutio and the Friar. The actress says the director “encouraged” her and the other performers who played multiple roles “to invest in the idea of poles, or internal dichotomies, and for Mercutio and the Friar, there’s nihilism on one side and then there’s idealism on the other side.” The Tony nominee for The Skin of Our Teeth found that the two characters “move through a world that seems really violent and incomprehensible and are given a different set of tools to do that.”
Romeo + Juliet began each performance with a long pre-show, in which its young cast hung out on stage with a shopping cart filled with stuff animals and inflatable loungers to set the mood of the production. Beans then initiated the proceedings as the de facto emcee, introducing the audience to each performer and the character or characters each one would be portraying. The actress says that Gold had an idea that her track would feature “a meta-awareness around the larger life of the piece and act as a propulsive narrative feature.” Although she initially found this facet of the role “really intimidating” during rehearsals, she soon relished the chance to “harness the energy of the company and of the theater” in an “effusive, riotous way.”
If this sounds like an unconventional production of Romeo + Juliet, Gold certainly leaned into Gen Z aesthetics with a club atmosphere, electronic dance music, and original songs written by Jack Antonoff and performed by Rachel Zegler as Juliet. Perhaps no scene better encapsulated this vibe than the Capulet ball, in which Romeo (Kit Connor) and Juliet meet. Beans remembers performing that scene fondly because it is really about “the relationship between these three very, very close friends,” referring to Mercutio, Romeo, and Benvolio (Taheen Modak). “It was beautiful to experience the evolution of that scene as we actually became friends, to see how that scene changed and how we could bring whatever was interesting us on any given day to the scene,” shares the performer.
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As both Mercutio and the Friar, Beans shared most of her stage time with Kit Connor, the Heartstopper star who made his Broadway debut as Romeo. “He’s an absolutely brilliant actor, so present, so committed to being as truthful and present in the work as he can,” shares the Tony nominee. She continues, “He is a star. He’s just a really magnetic, warm, incredibly gifted performer, so when you’re working with someone like that, you just have to listen and respond and be present to what’s happening in the space.”
One of the most challenging scenes in the production to bring to life was the duel in which Tybalt (Tommy Dorfman) and Mercutio both die. Few of the performers involved in that scene had much experience with fight choreography prior to this production, Beans included. The actress credits Drew Leary for finding a way to “fulfill the dramatic needs of the moment in terms of stakes and violence.” She found Mercutio’s death scene “really challenging and beautiful” to play because she wanted to make the moment “feel authentic and real and raw,” but because the show was performed in the round, she also had to consider “staging necessities to allow everyone in the room to have access to that moment.” She reveals that she had to thread the needle of her “naturalistic impulses in terms of how a death happens whilst also saying some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.”
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On the subject of Shakespeare’s beautiful poetry, Beans also delivered the show’s famous final couplet: “For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” The performer hilariously recounts her fear that she would accidentally say “Julio and Romiet” and ruin the whole play. But she found true resonance in these lines written some four centuries ago. She says that the sentiment of the lines resonated with Gold’s staging because the director was “talking about what it means to be young and coming into yourself in a world that is undergirded by structures that are inherently oppressive and violent and what that means for love.” Beans loved sharing the whole final elegy with the audience because “we need to be in community and communication with each other in order to try and not continue repeating these historical human foibles.” She adds, “It would be great if there was a world in which Romeo and Juliet lost some of its cultural relevance because there was less violence in the world, but as long as we’re in a violent world, this play will have a lot of meaning.”