Review: The Lady Wants It Her Way

& Juliet, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, Aug. 13 – Sept. 7, 2025; Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, Sept. 9 – 21, 2025

Aug. 17, 2025 | By Bruce R. Feldman

In Brief: & Juliet is a doctored collection of about two dozen terrific, robustly staged and strikingly sung pop power ballads masquerading as a Broadway musical. As a pop concert, it’s a great night out. As a work of theater, it’s a letdown.

Rachel Webb and the company of & Juliet. (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

It takes a lot of guts – some would say nerve – to think you can improve on Shakespeare. This hasn’t stopped the Center Theatre Group from trying more than once this season, however.

Their recent production of Hamlet, truncated into one act with a newly fabricated second part reframing the classic drama as a gumshoe murder mystery set at a film studio, was a travesty.

Now comes & Juliet, another muddled take on another Shakespeare masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet. While this one has plenty of drawbacks, the production is at least entertaining for the most part.

The show debuted on Broadway in 2019 and is on tour this month at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles before stopping at the Segerstrom in Costa Mesa in September.

David West Read devised the overripe book of & Juliet, which starts by asking the question, what might have happened if Juliet hadn’t taken her life after discovering Romeo dead. Would she have lived years of regret and heartbreak over lost love, or would she have become a champion of women’s rights, female empowerment, and self-actualization?

I’m not sure that audiences have been waiting 400 years to find out, but in the Me-Too era it’s easy to guess which outcome Read has chosen.  

 Corey Mach as a feckless William Shakespeare in &Juliet. (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

Read further supposes that Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, about whom very little is known, was fed up with her husband’s inattention and chauvinism. He turns her into a central, emasculating, whiny character and the Bard himself into her feeble pawn.

To achieve his politcally correct, all-in-good-fun vision, Read has concocted an ersatz jukebox musical utilizing mostly well know pop hits by the songwriting giant Max Martin, stitched together with brief interludes of sophomoric exposition, cheesy jokes, and pandering platitudes.

Fortunately for us, at least Martin’s tunes are worth the price of admission. He may not be a household name, but his impressive string of hits is music industry gold.

Most were chart-toppers, such as “Oops!... I  Did It Again,” the song that made Britney Spears a star, or the popular Katy Perry gender bender “I Kissed a Girl.” There’s also Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life,” Ellie Goulding's "Love Me like You Do," and the classic “I Want It That Way” for The Back Street Boys.

It’s a pleasure to revisit these and many other pop standards, as the cast of talented singers, dancers, and musicians knocks one after another out of the park. What they cannot do is redeem Read's turgid book.

A plucky, irresistible Rachel Webb plays Juliet. She’s a powerhouse performer with a big voice and appealing personality. Teal Wicks hams it up as Anne Hathaway. Corey Mach plays Shakespeare as a hapless schlub rather than the towering theatrical genius he remains to this day.

& Juliet uses Martin’s crowd-pleasing soundtrack to animate Juliet and Hathaway’s imagined transformative journey. The result is a colorful spectacle that prioritizes empowerment slogans, cheap jokes, and hit songs over any pretense of dramatic depth.

An audience out for a night of entertainment will gladly take to Martin’s infectious rhythms and choreographer Jennifer Weber’s glittering set pieces. Others may find themselves torn between tapping their feet and longing for the emotional complexity of Shakespeare’s original.

“& Juliet,” Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 628-2772, www.centertheatregroup.org; Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 556-2787, scfta.org.