Less than a week after Faction of Fools closed their production Romeo and Juliet, Synetic Theater opened their run of the same story. While this play is such a common element of popular culture that a plot summary is unnecessary, local audiences are fortunate that they can experience two theater companies with such distinct artistic visions providing such radically different approaches to the same source material nearly back to back. Whereas the Fools’ production was guided by the dictum “Romeo and Juliet is a comedy, except when it isn’t,” Synetic’s approach in their wordless adaptation is to rely on their prowess in physical and visual theater.

The stage is dominated by a massive gear-work, including a coiled spring, and a pendulum, suggesting a clock. The Friar (Irakli Kavsadze), clad in vestments that appear too opulent for a mendicant order—his red robes and the zucchetto suggest a cardinal instead—emerges and sets the pendulum in motion. The ensemble enters, setting gears spinning as they circle about the stage, sometimes moving their limbs in a tick-tock rhythm in a choreographic overture by Irina Tsikurishvili. Soon though, they break out of their cycles and, using the gears as shields, form themselves into military phalanxes representing fair Verona’s opposing houses. But eroticism breaks through the militaristic and mechanical ensemble: when Romeo (Zana Gankhuyag) and Juliet’s (Irinka Kavsadze) hands touch, their palms and fingers undulate together like the blooming petals of a rose, or the wings of a dove in flight. Brian Allard’s lighting design makes for many striking images, recalling German expressionist films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

This dramaturgical conceit of a clockwork Verona may seem strange (especially in this wordless production) but Phil Charlwood’s set and prop design is grounded in William Shakespeare’s text. Juliet’s impatience as she awaits from word Romeo: “The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse. In half an hour she promised to return” (Act II, Scene 5). Again when Friar Lawrence describes the drug he gave Juliet: “…in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death, Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours, And then awake as from a pleasant sleep,” (Act IV, Scene 1). In absence of Shakespeare’s poetry, the gears become a visual symbol tying with the theme: cycles of violence, the way each episode in the story sets up the next until the tragic conclusion only to play another night, and even new ways of thinking about lines we may have memorized as students: The “pair of star-crossed lovers” now evoke machines known as orreries, which used gears, cranks, and chains, to predict the relative positions of planets, moons, and even constellations. First staged by Synetic in 2008, this reimagining by director Paata Tsikurishvili and co-adaptor Nathan Weinberger, however unusual, has continued to work with audiences—it was remounted in 2011 and 2016 before this current revival.

This clockwork Verona is also contrasted with the humanism and gentle humor of the Friar. Kavsadze demonstrates his skill as a mime, making something as simple as his picking medicinal herbs from his garden a joy to watch. Likewise Koki Lortkipanidze’s score is rooted in old-school electronic music made on analog equipment, giving a handmade feel that seems to seek balance between the mechanical and organic aspects of the show.

Vato Tsikurishvili, who plays Tybalt with the intensity of a Chekhov’s gun that must go off in the third act, also contributes exhilarating fight choreography—with leaps, feints, and sweeps of legs that manage to thrill even when the swords are mimed.

Importantly, it is not just a matter that Synetic’s work has translated a well-known classic into a performance idiom for which they have a virtuosic mastery—there are interesting takes on characters. Paris (Jacob Thompson), Lord Capulet’s chosen suitor for Juliet’s hand, is, in most stagings, portrayed as a worthy match for her affections if only she met him before Romeo, but here he is introduced as an arrogant cad, aggressively pursuing Juliet as the Capulets and their guests dance their own intricate movements of circles within circles (another instance of Irina drawing choreographic inspiration from the clockwork theme). Romeo’s friend Mercutio (Tony Amante) is no longer the brash warrior poet, but an upper-class vulgarian, quick with obscene gestures and lascivious movements. Amante brings a willingness to tease and tumble as well as an eagerness to give offense, like a friend whose transgressive humor may prove a vicarious thrill in the moment but becomes a source of embarrassment once one reflects on the previous night’s festivities.

While Shakespeare’s own Romeo and Juliet text hints that Verona might heal and reconcile after tragedy, this clockwork retelling leaves a more ambiguous ending: Will the machine continue on its cycle, repeating the tragedy night after night, year after year until the spring breaks or the gears lock?

During the opening night speech, Paata Tsikurishvili announced what many in the audience already knew: After many years, this will be Synetic’s final show in their Crystal City home. The redevelopment plan for Arlington’s National Landing did not factor in the importance of the arts, and while Synetic will continue, for the foreseeable future, they will be performing in different venues throughout the metropolitan area, perhaps encountering new audiences.

Synetic Theater presents Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare and adapted by Nathan Weinberger and Paata Tsikurishvili and directed by Tsikurishvili, which runs through March 24. synetictheater.org. $35–$65.