This is why my wife and I return to Stratford. The bells and whistles of featured musicals like Something Rotten are typically engaging, farcical fun; our mileage will vary on time-travel takes on classics (like the current “Summer of Love” production of Twelfth Night) and unsubtly Urgent Cultural Message plays (looking at you, La Cage aux Folles). But what draws us here again and again is what Sam White’s production of Romeo and Juliet provides in plenty: Shakespeare’s archetypal tragedy, presented with unwavering commitment, designed with minimalist period flair, expertly staged and acted. This is a refreshingly down and dirty exploration of a play that resonates down the centuries, not only in its high-spirited vision of young love, but in its taut portrayal of the fears and passions that ultimately thwart its star-crossed lovers.

A sung prologue sets the table for a whirlwind first half, with White’s deft command of the intimate, surprisingly bare Festival Theatre stage was powerfully evident. Whether in the opening scene’s street brawl or at the masquerade where Romeo meets Juliet, crowd movements are vibrant, organic, purposeful, frequently cued by Graham Hargrove & Jasmine Jones-Ball’s thrusting onstage percussion. Individuals’ speeches fluently unpack each character’s motivation and reactions: a blustering Tybalt (Emilio Vieria), a cautious Benvolio (Steven Hao), the exasperation of Prince Escalus (Nick Dolan), the defensive crouch of the senior Capulets and Montagues — all establish the underlying powder keg of anger and resentment, ready to go off at an antagonist’s tiniest slight to personal honor.

Which is the reason Jonathan Martin’s lovesick Romeo and Vanessa Sears’ passionate Juliet stand out; in clans obsessed with judgment and rejection of the other, their soliloquies mark how they crave hope, yearn for a lasting acceptance. And when they find each other, the attraction is immediate, magnetic, unstoppable. The inspired duet of their balcony scene exhilarates; their capricious browbeating of Friar Laurence (consummate Festival veteran Scott Wentworth) into a clandestine wedding feels inevitable in the sweep of their mounting passion. But then, the explosion: with the hair-trigger murders of Andrew Iles’ Mercutio by Tybalt and Tybalt by Romeo — tumbling over each other in a brutal, riveting flash of violence — fear wins out, tragedy gathers momentum. Blackout!

This was the moment when my stomach knotted — and even though I’ve known this play since high school, as the second half slammed one door after another and the lovers’ scheming grew more desperate, it refused to untwist. When Graham Abbey’s Capulet compels Juliet’s consent to marry Austin Eckert’s Paris by callous words and physical force; when Juliet threatens suicide, then grasps at the straw of Friar Laurence’s stupefying potion; when Glynnis Ranney’s Nurse keens an anachronistic snatch of Henry Purcell (testimony to White’s love for opera) over Juliet’s grave; when Romeo’s turbulent emotions solidify around his own suicide mission, the tension ratchets up and up, to unbearable heights.

Which is why the final bloodbath in the Capulet vault — as Paris, then Romeo, then Juliet die at the hands of misdirected honor and folly under pressure, to the belated horror of Capulets, Montagues and Prince alike — ultimately feels inescapable, and remarkably universal. In White’s sure, determined hands, this tragedy could be playing out anywhere at anytime, be it Renaissance Mantua or 21st-century Detroit (where her mother kickstarted her passion for Shakespeare at the age of 8, as a disciplinary consequence for catching her listening to Salt’n’Pepa). As she tosses out to close her program notes: “Remember what happens when we don’t love our neighbor as ourselves. Just saying.”

I’m deeply grateful for this production of Romeo & Juliet — its primal commitment to Shakespeare as an artist speaking across and into multiple cultures, its understated opulence and fleet pace, its vivid characterizations and exuberant performances, its cataclysmic clash of the deepest forces at work in our fallen, idealistic, conflicted psyches and societies. For those with ears to hear and eyes to see, it’s a thrill, a warning, and maybe even a necessary passage from heights of joy through depths of despair to chastened, repentant grief. Above all, it’s well worth your time and travel to experience.

— Rick Krueger

Romeo & Juliet plays at Stratford’s Festival Theatre through October 26. Click here for production information. Click here for ticket availability.