Stage Capsule Reviews

 Houston Shakespeare Festival Forget the endless rain, the suffocating heat, the blasted bugs — now is the summer of love at the Houston Shakespeare Festival. And the smoldering heat onstage at the Miller Outdoor Theatre will go a long way toward making you forget about the weather outside. The most famous teenage lovers of all time are especially hot in director Carolyn Houston Boone's inventive, utterly captivating rendition of Romeo and Juliet. Jonathan Middents's set takes us to a sort of Dick Tracy-style metropolis. And the Montagues and Capulets, who start off the story getting ready for a fight, dress like old-style gangsters in Margaret Crowley's smooth costumes. Even Shakespeare's lingo gets delivered in Brooklyn accents. All this might sound wrong to any purist out there, but it doesn't take long before the whole mise en scène that Boone creates feels like the world Shakespeare intended all along. Also on the bill is Love's Labor's Lost, a bawdy comedy about a King (Justin Doran) and his three Lords, who determine to spend three years cloistered in monastic-like study. They make a pact to give up wine, women and song. Then the Princess of France (Celeste Roberts) arrives with three pretty French Ladies in attendance, and the young men's best intentions burn up in their fiery desire. The comedic farce is one of Shakespeare's least performed works. Full of puns and wordplay, the real star of this work is language itself. And as directed by Sidney Berger, it all actually make sense — most of the time. Through August 11. 100 Concert Dr., 713-533-3276. — LW