What I liked
The unraveling of each of the plays through the eyes of Benvolio and Horatio was incredibly fun (and frankly distressing) to watch and as a fellow Shakespeare nerd, I felt so in tune with the show and the audience. I feel like adaptations and modernizations of Shakespeare’s plays can get repetitive, but We Need Better Friends is so unique in its approach to the classic plays and their characters that knowing the plays and the references is just an added layer of fun on top of a stellar show.
What I didn't like
The transitions between major events in the play were a bit nonspecific, particularly in the costume design; sometimes I was unsure of how much time had passed between scenes. And the scene changes were executed by the actors instead of a stagehand which took me out of it a little, but that wasn’t anything major.
My overall impression
So clever! James and Nicole bring out all the humor, heartbreak, and truth of what it is like to be “the best friend” in a Shakespearean tragedy. The depth they provide to each of their characters outside the boundaries of the original plays is beautiful and I loved every second of it.
