Greater Sudbury Northern Life contributor Libby Dornbush 
Thorneloe University Theatre presents Romeo and Juliet until Nov. 29. Tickets cost $5 for students and seniors and $10 for adults. For more information, phone 673-1730.
A bare stage with a variety of levels suggest physical action to come:  three towers of the sort that used to be used for television reception rise from the back and sides to almost meet at the top: a group of people, enter carrying a variety of sporting instruments, bats, rackets, sticks: they strike a tableaux and the Thorneloe production of Romeo and Juliet has begun.
Several hours later I feel that I have seen a play I have never seen before, despite numerous viewings of various productions of Shakespeare's classic.
In her words of preface, director Valerie Senyk says of the live theatre experience, "For a brief time, we experience an empathic community…together we engage in a story that speaks to our humanity and our world."  The actors in this Romeo and Juliet do engage their audience as few others have.
The time is indeterminate, probably 20th or 21st century, costuming is light, unrestrictive, the cast is evenly divided between male and female and women take roles written for men with no disruption of the meaning or purpose of the play. Both sexes share in the love and violence of the setting, old Italy or young Sudbury, where a remark or a gesture can start a fight.
The fights fell real, painful and, in our captured imaginations, bloody and deadly. The love of the two awkward teenagers is equally real, a little silly to watch as adolescent infatuation often is, but painfully reminiscent of the intensity and absolute dedication of that heated passion.
Senyk has assembled a large and talented cast. They knew their play and the meaning of not only the words but the themes on which the director was basing this production. A mirror was held up to the oppositions in society: young and old, male and female, love and hate, old hates and new solutions,  timeless dichotomies being presented here in a refreshing  new way. This post-modern Romeo and Juliet includes a chorus, dance, music, tableaux and a physical and passionate cast.
In a large and excellent cast, some roles and some moments stand out: Romeo's mood changes from sulky to delirious with love to terrified by the events engulfing him; Juliet (Rose-Erin Stokes) first as a love struck girl following the machinations of lover, nurse, spiritual leader, then as a desperate women who must find her own solution; Lord Capulet (Luke Newton) railing against the disobedient daughter who would threaten his authority and society's opinion of him; Lady Capulet (Sarah Gartshore) grieving over  the body of her 'dead' daughter; Mother Laurence (Jen Hazelton)  trying to find a way to reconcile these two families by manipulating the events that will overwhelm her; and especially the magical performance by Tom Gavin as Mercutio, a exciting, energetic and mercurial performance that seems to bring The Tempest's Arial into the streets of Verona.
This is Professor Senyk's last production for Thorneloe Theatre as she is leaving both the University and Sudbury at the end of this term. Under her direction Thorneloe has presented some of the most exciting, interesting and controversial English language theatre in Sudbury. We wish her well in future endeavours, but she will be sorely missed here.
Don't miss this last production of hers. She and the cast and crew of Thorneloe University Theatre have put together a passionate, gripping and touching new look at Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. You will never look at this play the same way again after seeing this show. Go.
