Connecticut Ballet, Palace Theatre, May 16, 1998.

PALACE THEATRE, STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT MAY 16, 1998

The story of Romeo and Juliet's doomed love has entered pop culture on a mythic level to provide archetypes for angstridden adolescents everywhere. Each decade, a new iconic version arises that enlivens the tale for its generation of young hearts: West Side Story in the 1950s, the Franco Zeffirelli film in the 1960s, not to mention many noteworthy ballet productions for the higher-browed. Teenagers languishing in today's suburbs might not be able to quote any Shakespearean couplets, but they have undoubtedly seen Leonardo DiCaprio yearn for Clare Danes on the big screen in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

A scene from this film is projected onto a video monitor during the bedroom pas de deux of Connecticut Ballet's new two-act Romeo and Juliet. Artistic director Brett Raphael also updates, to varying effect, the story for today's youth with other elements, primarily pop music by Bruce Springsteen, Sarah McLachlan, and Ani Di Franco. Set in a gymnasium, the warring Montagues and Capulets have become competing basketball teams. Presented at a matinee and an evening performance on a single day, the ballet drew few youngsters in the evening.

Two guests from the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Maia Wilkins and Michael Levine, performed the leading roles. Neither looks adolescent, but Levine's clarity of technique and tender sincerity were effective. He initially looks a bit of a doofus, the quintessential good guy compared to Juliet's posse of leather-clad, shaven-headed punks. Wilkins displays a gawky innocence in her cut-off overalls during a slumber party with her girlfriends.

Even though all members of the design team have extensive professional credits the production looks as though it had been thrown together from rented scraps and hand-me-downs in an uneasy mixture of contemporary and traditional styles. A. Christina Giannini's costumes capture the polychromatic pastiche of a swarming shopping mall, yet Juliet's mother wears a traditional Renaissance gown. Peter Lobello's scenic design, particularly the fleur-de-lis-covered scrim of Juliet's bedroom, overpowers, while Robert Wierzel's lights leave patches of murk on the cavernous stage of the Palace Theatre. Another anomaly: the basketball sequence captures the athleticism of modern sports (and is the most vital choreography of the evening), yet the enemies duel with drawn swords.

Canadian alternative rocker Veda Hille stars at the senior dance atop a set of bleachers and steals the second act with her throaty vocals and nonchalance. Her cool contains the pith of nineties sensibilities that Raphael strives to capture elsewhere.