Review | ‘The Capulet Black & White Ball’

Westmont’s Welcome Immersive Reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the Santa Barbara CAW

'The Capulet Black & White Ball' takes place at the ball where Romeo and Juliet meet. | Photo: Ciena Fitzgerald

John Blondell’s latest classic-text adaptation (Romeo and Juliet) brings audience members an immersive theatrical experience at the Community Arts Workshop (CAW) with gritty tableaus that loosely tell the tale of Shakespeare’s tragic romance. In this production by the Westmont theater department, audience members play the part of faceless guests at the Capulet’s black and white ball — the fateful jubilee where Romeo and Juliet meet and commence their doomed affair. (Applause to the audience, who understood the assignment and dressed smartly in black and white!) Here’s hoping that the success of The Capulet Black & White Ball will inspire more artists to experiment with immersive performances in this very cool downtown space.

Blondell’s collage of elements creates an intriguing noir atmosphere, an urban concrete-and-warehouse aesthetic in a non-specific modern age in which wealthy families and their associated street gangs feud unshackled in the streets. Standout moments include the implied brawl between Mercutio, Tybalt, and Romeo, complete with the slow dragging of lead pipes to the fray and dramatic final breaths in the harsh headlights of a parked car. Local jazz band Helios provides the musical backdrop to the unfolding calamity, further coloring the intensity, revelry, and disdain ever-present throughout the story.

The performance features scenes in a variety of locations throughout CAW, and audience members follow the action on foot. Romeo and Juliet in its purest form is lovely, but it’s been seen and experienced to death. Audiences know the show well enough to follow the plot of the teenagers’ lives unraveling, even with much of the text replaced by conceptual action. The Capulet Black & White Ball feels edgy without losing Shakespeare’s original poetry, a bygone language that roots the audience in the reality that weathering the passions between warring neighbors is a timeless requirement of the human experience.