star-crossed

Few Olympic teams in any sport have had to rebound more times or overcome adversity more often than the U.S. women’s water polo team, the most successful in the world in the pool and the most star-crossed outside it.

Zack Norman, who made his mark as an actor in films like “Romancing the Stone” and “Cadillac Man” and with appearances on television shows like “The A-Team” and “The Nanny” — and who, as a producer, also became known for a star-crossed movie that became a running punchline on the show “Mystery Science Theater 3000” — died on April 28 in Burbank, Calif. He was 83.

I hurt with the knowledge that maybe our meeting had been a cruel accident and not star-crossed love.

Yet the comic high jinks, star-crossed lovers and long-lost relatives that pop up in his play “The Miser,” first produced in 1668, will be instantly familiar to anybody who has ever seen a Shakespeare comedy.

Class is the central theme in “Egoist”: Kosuke and Ryuta’s star-crossed romance shows us how money, and the struggle to make ends meet, can complicate even the most genuine love.