PLANO – Cut! Cut! Cut!

NAN COULTER/Special Contributor

Melian Izotova as Juliet was one of the bright spots in Commedia Ballet Theatre's performance.

Like many small companies with big ambitions, Commedia Ballet Theatre took on a little more than it could handle Tuesday at the Courtyard Theater. Even though its new Forbidden Fruit: The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet clocked in at barely more than an hour, it was waaaay too long.

Like Contemporary Ballet Dallas, another small company with big ambitions, Commedia favors pop music, famous dramas and fairy tales, and has a keen desire to be audience-friendly. Young, hip and unintimidating seems to be the mantra.

Among its innovations were casting the roles of Benvolio, Mercutio and Tybalt as women, putting them in tutus and en pointe. Mark Morris did the reverse, with men as snowflakes in his Nutcracker, and Matthew Bourne with male swans – buzz cut and bare-chested – in his Swan Lake. So switching genders is not unprecedented, but one suspects that in the case of Commedia, men were simply in short supply. For that matter, so were skilled dancers. Several roles were performed by stiff, self-conscious types.

To the company's credit, Forbidden Fruit had moments of inspired choreography, some effective lighting and costumes, and a Romeo and Juliet who danced beautifully. Mykhaylo Izotova (Romeo) and Melian Izotova (Juliet), former members of Metropolitan Classical Ballet, looked as though they wandered off the set of a different Shakespeare play – Hamlet, perhaps – but they brought depth and, in the case of Ms. Izotova, glamour.

The rival factions portrayed by Cindy Kumer, Jennifer Obeney and Christina Hadiwijaya came across as rough, not rambunctious. They made pointe work a show of aggression. In one act of defiance, Ms. Obeney (Mercutio) yanked out a hairpin and let her hair spill to her shoulders, glaring balefully.

At times, the stop-and-go quality of the drama worked fine, creating tiny, vivid vignettes. There was just the briefest scene of Friar Lawrence blessing the lovers, and a longer, very effective one in Juliet's bed chamber. After Romeo left, she swirled around holding a swath of gauzy white fabric. As she turned and swooped, the cloth billowed and tumbled until at last she gathered it to her breast, fell to the edge of the bed and, in ecstasy, smothered her face with the fabric. Alas, such moments were few.

With a ballet so truncated, symphonic music – of which Prokofiev's is the usual choice – was ditched in favor of a motley assortment that included tunes by Evanescence, Moby, Danny Elfman (Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns), John Williams (Memoirs of a Geisha), Linkin Park and Nine Inch Nails.

Cut out the flab – leaving the balcony scene, Friar Lawrence, Juliet with friends and the crypt – and this R&J might have a future.

Margaret Putnam is a Richardson-based writer who covers dance.