Verona Walls

Some Shakespearean tragedies are ripe for a prequel; amidst the chaos and bloodshed, you wonder what happened to get us here, and what might be going on just out of view. In Verona Walls, playwright Laura Hirschberg, a Shakespeare devotee since childhood, imagines a background story for Romeo and Juliet that is separate from the ancient grudges that frame the Bard’s tragedy. She spins a separate and most profound “bromance” for the Montague boys in this new play, which centers on the loves and mistakes of Mercutio–Romeo’s best friend and Shakespeare’s notorious scene-stealer–as the action of Romeo and Juliet plays out somewhere offstage.