“& Juliet” is an upbeat, poppy sensation

With more number one hits on the billboard Hotter than any other music producer in history, Swedish songwriter Max Martin stands pretty much alone in the modern pop world. Among songwriters, only Paul McCartney has written more number one hits than the man who gave us “…Baby One More Time,” “I Kissed a Girl,” “Since U Been Gone” and countless other groundbreaking hits.

But is there a Max Martin song for every beat of a heartfelt feminist revision of Shakespeare? Romeo and Juliet in which the young Miss Capulet chooses life over the dagger?

The team behind the 2023 Broadway musical sensation & Julia I certainly think so. The Tony-nominated jukebox jam, directed by Luke Sheppard, distills three decades of Martin’s greatest hits from a dozen artists — from Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys to Adam Lambert, P!nk and The Weeknd — into one exuberant Girl -Power musical comedy with an Emmy-winning book Schitt’s Creek Writer and producer David West Read.

It has already turned legions of fans into believers. Now, & Juliawhich is still playing on Broadway, is coming to the rest of North America with a touring production that just opened at the Kennedy Center. Staged with verve and style, the show makes the most of Martin’s catalog of co-written tunes, although not every song selection fits Read’s witty retelling of the Bard like a glove.

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William “Will” Shakespeare himself appears as a character, played by Corey Mach, who is eager to present his timeless love story. But he is interrupted by his unsung, oft-forgotten wife, Anne Hathaway (Teal Wicks), who is desperate to reclaim her voice as a storyteller. Anne throws in the idea of ​​a living Julia, determined to find a happier ending than the tragedy her husband planned for her.

Will and Anne begin their respective cases with dueling Backstreet Boys numbers “Larger Than Life” and “I Want It That Way,” establishing themselves as the power couple in the battle of the sexes. Mach and Wicks provide a lively tension between man and woman, although neither really delivers stunning vocals in the pop style of Martin’s songs.

Wicks, whose acting is certainly satisfying, tends to sound either too weird when she sings songs or like a show musician trying (too) hard to be a sassy rocker. Mach, on the other hand, proves to be a good singer, neither conveying the lite-funk verve of Martin’s oeuvre in his singing nor in his engagement with Jennifer Weber’s music video-inspired choreography. While this power couple may be appealing, it is not where the power lies in production.

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For that we turn to Rachel Simone Webb’s fabulous Julia, who consistently nails it, starting with her haunting, passionate “…Baby One More Time” and ending with a soaring “Roar.” Having completed his Broadway training, Webb captures the character’s youthful naivety with just the right touch of humor, convincingly takes us on Julia’s journey of self-discovery, and the singing is devastatingly great.

She wears both Shakespeare and Martin well – not to mention Paloma Young’s Elizabethan and MTV costumes. And she receives excellent support from Kathryn Allison as Julia’s nurse Angélique and Paul-Jordan Jansen as Angélique’s lover Lance. Jansen accompanies these pop songs with an incongruously classic panache that is thoroughly funny and fits the story, which eventually makes room for Romeo (Michael Canu).

Not only does Juliet’s deceased man get a big cameo to Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life,” but he also inspires perhaps the show’s best use of a Martin hit, with Juliet pummeling him with Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone.”

Juliet carries on, all right, with the help of Anne, Angélique and her non-binary pal May (Nick Drake), who gets perhaps the most forced use of a Martin tune in the series by singing Britney’s “I’m Not a Girl.” “ sings , Not a woman yet.”

Although Drake sang the song well, it is too intrusive and yet off-key for the queer “I want” number. May sings that they’re “just trying to find the woman in me,” which raises questions that the characterization doesn’t really address.

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“May is who May is, and it’s none of our business,” we’re told, and that message resonates even when the songs, like “I Kissed a Girl,” don’t exactly nail it. Also resonant is the romance between May and François (Mateus Leite Cardoso), another character Shakespeare didn’t write and who represents a facet of young queer love that Shakespeare probably would have understood if she hadn’t embraced it outright.

Would he perhaps have accepted a musicalization of his greatest hit as a vehicle for the so-called Shakespeare of Pop? We can only imagine that he would appreciate the similar strains of youthful madness and star-crossed love that predominate in Martin’s songs and say, “I want it that way” instead of “Oops… I did it again.”

& Julia (★★★☆☆) plays at the Kennedy Center Opera House through January 5, 2025. Tickets range from $45 to $239. Call 202-467-4600 or visit us www.kennedy-center.org.

The national tour also plays Atlanta (7/1-12/1), Houston (21/1-26/1), Nashville (11/2-16/2), Providence (25/2-3/2), Philadelphia (25/3-4/3). /6), Cincinnati (8.4.-20.4.), Louisville (22.4.-27.4.), Minneapolis (13.5.-18.5.), Denver (4.6.-15.6.), Las Vegas (24.6.-29.6.), San Francisco (July 1st – July 27th), Seattle (July 29th – August 3rd), Los Angeles (Aug. 13-Sept. 7) and many other cities across North America through 2026. For tickets and information, visit www.andjulietbroadway.com and click US Tour Tickets at the top of the home page.