Doomed love, at the last minute
With three weeks to prepare, Mickey Solis takes on Romeo
CAMBRIDGE -- Mickey Solis doesn't mince words when he's asked what it's like to take over a leading role just three weeks before ''Romeo and Juliet" opens.
''It's really [expletive] hard," he says with a laugh.
He's clearly maintaining a sense of humor about it. ''I got the news, and I was just like, OK," Solis says. ''It was almost in the middle of the rehearsal process. To take on Romeo! Three-week Romeo," he calls himself, with a rueful grin.
Solis, who made a strong impression in last season's ''Desire Under the Elms," now gets a little extra time to work onstage before press night, as the American Repertory Theatre decided to delay the official opening until Feb. 15; previews started yesterday. But there's no question that this is Shakespeare under pressure. The production had already seen a change of directors; Janos Szasz dropped out for a movie deal (which later fell through), and Israeli director Gadi Roll, who becomes associate director of the New Belgrade Theatre in the UK this spring, stepped in.
Solis says, though, that in some ways he's grateful to have been forced right into the deep end of the pool. He had one day to reread the play, and then it was straight into rehearsal -- of the balcony scene, no less.
''I think it's definitely the best way to do it," he says. If he had more time to think about the challenge, ''it would be a psych-out. Instead, it's 'This is what's got to happen, and just do it.' "
He has the advantage, too, that he'd been playing Benvolio, Romeo's best friend, before being asked to take over the Romeo role from Avery Glymph, who left over what the ART called ''artistic differences." So he'd already been immersed in Roll's vision of the play.
''The thing that makes Gadi not just good but great is that whoever you are -- Romeo, Juliet, Lady Capulet, Montague, Benvolio, whoever -- he says, 'Look, this is a story about a very big idea that you have to live up to,' " Solis says. ''Everybody's part of this world, and everybody's affected, mutated, changed, pleasured by this world. So there was already the idea of putting our larger ideas about humanity into it."
Roll has been unavailable for interviews, but both Solis and his costar, Annika Boras, say the director sees the star-crossed lovers as rebels against a corrupt, controlling world. Riccardo Hernandez's set design, which Roll largely inherited from Szasz's plans but has modified slightly, underscores the oppressive atmosphere of this Verona, with looming steel structures and shadowy spaces beneath.
''Romeo and Juliet are two people who truly see what the world is, see life as it is," explains Boras, a New Jersey native who recently graduated from London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. ''They're willing -- and determined -- to live life truthfully and with heart. Everything they say is honest; they don't have time for flowery language if it's not to the point. If they can't be together, then they would prefer to die. It's not a death wish. If you can't have the truth, then you'd be living a life of death."
That squares with Solis's idea of his character. ''He's a kid that hangs out on Friday night, all dressed in black with spiky hair, at the subway in Harvard Square," he says. ''He's reached the limit, man. When we first meet Romeo, he's just trying to get out. I think he knows that it doesn't matter whether he wins or loses; it's just about playing the game -- getting the most out of it before he dies. To love the most he can, to give everything, to live life at 120 [miles per hour] come what may. That's why, when he meets Juliet, it's no holds barred."
Solis's promotion led to another twist: the recasting of Benvolio with a woman, Molly Ward (recently seen at the ART as Masha in Krystian Lupa's ''Three Sisters"). And that change, Solis says, has had a ripple effect of its own.
''As a man playing Benvolio, I had a certain relationship with Romeo, with Mercutio," he says. ''As a woman, Molly has a completely different relationship. And one of the things that makes Gadi so smart is that he didn't neglect that fact. I think there's history there; there's broken hearts there. And that affects what's going on under the surface now."
This idea of a history with Benvolio, in addition to the failed romance with Rosaline that Romeo bemoans in his first scene, Solis says, adds another dimension to our understanding of the play's central tragedy.
''It augments what Shakespeare is going to tell us about the 'fated love' of Romeo and Juliet," he says. ''It was never going to happen with Benvolio or with Rosaline; it just wasn't. It was always going to happen with two people who shared some beliefs in living life to the fullest."
And that brings us, of course, to the key question of the chemistry between these two people -- something that's hard to assess until you see them onstage, and something that, as both Solis and Boras acknowledge, they're still figuring out.
''I just look forward to the run," Boras says. ''There's a lot of room to grow. We're still getting to know each other, but that's kind of exciting. It's very exciting. And Mickey's a real joy to work with."
Boras hadn't done much deep rehearsing with the previous Romeo, she says, so it wasn't a huge adjustment to find herself with a new partner. But it does make a difference.
''The most important thing is to respond and listen," she says. ''It is altering who she is, because she's in love with this man."
''Annika's a great listener," Solis chimes in. He turns to her. ''That first day in rehearsal, it was really clear that something was happening behind your eyes. It is about listening. It's all about listening."
''What?" Boras quips, bringing Solis up short. Then he gets it, and they both collapse in laughter.
Louise Kennedy can be reached at kennedy@globe.com. 