When one thinks of love, especially theatrical love, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet inevitably comes to mind. For five hundred years, company after company has put up this classic tale of star-crossed lovers; it has been copied, adapted, and updated a thousand times.

One may wonder, then, why anyone would feel it necessary to put such an exhausted piece on the stage once more; if one does, all he needs do is see the is final production of the Harvard summer season to find the answer.

Directed by Ryan McGee ’96 and assistant directed by Jeremy Funke ’04, this Romeo and Juliet electrifies the Loeb Experimental Theater.

Beginning with a wonderfully disturbing opening dream sequence, the staging throughout the show channels the amazing energy of the actors.

Most impressive of all, however, was the brilliant staging of perhaps the most famous, and most often clichéd, scenes in all of theater: the balcony scene. The director’s skill shines through with his ingenious use of space and his genuine staging in this beautifully-handled scene.

Having avoided that classic trap, McGee falls into a newer one. Some modern Shakespearean directors feel it necessary to alter Shakespeare’s plays in order distinguish their piece as an original production, failing to ground their revisions in the original text. McGee commits the error in creating a series of textually baseless flashbacks in the mind of the Friar, who McGee portrays as the ultimate villain; though the sequences are well executed, they only confuse the audience and detract from the show.

That said, McGee’s other adjustments to update the piece work quite well, including setting scenes at a kegger and a rave.

These scenes prove both the director’s skill and the versatility of Romeo and Juliet’s text.