The US House has passed a Senate-approved deal to lift the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown after 16 days.

As indicated before the Senate vote, Republican Speaker John Boehner did not block the fiscal deal from moving on, and it passed by a vote of 285/144 in the lower chamber of the House.

The measure was supported by every Democratic member of the House, but was rejected by a sizeable portion of Boehner’s GOP caucus.

Conservative Republicans were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the plan, as the federal health care law – the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare – they so object to will go virtually unscathed after all.

The Senate approved the proposal by a vote of 81/18 on Wednesday evening.

Republicans Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio were among the 18 ‘nay’ votes in the Senate.

President Obama said in a statement after the Senate vote that he intends to sign the legislation immediately after passage by the House. He alluded to hopes that Washington can begin to gain back the trust of voters given that more confrontations on debt, governmental budgeting, and other issues await.

“Hopefully next time, it won’t be in the eleventh hour. We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” Obama said.

The legislation funds the government through January 15 and lifts the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling through February 7.

The US Treasury’s authority to borrow money to pay down US debt obligations is scheduled to end Thursday, October 17. With no full spending bill from Congress, many government operations have been on hold since October 1.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spent previous days constructing a deal as the House failed to come to an agreement on a proposal Tuesday.

“This compromise we reached will provide our economy with the stability it desperately needs. It’s never easy for two sides to reach consensus. It’s really hard, sometimes harder than others. This time was really hard,” Reid said ahead of the vote. “The country came to the brink of a disaster. But in the end, political adversaries set aside their differences and disagreement to prevent that disaster.”

“The eyes of the world have been on Washington all this week, and that is a gross understatement. And while they witnessed a great deal of political discourse, today they will also see Congress reaching a historic, bipartisan agreement.”

US President Barack Obama speaks about the government shutdown and debt ceiling standoff in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, October 16, 2013 (AFP Photo / Saul Loeb)

Speaker Boehner, who has suppressed any full House vote on government-funding legislation passed by the Senate, said earlier Wednesday that he will no longer stand in the way.

”Blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by the members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us,” Boehner said in a statement.

The White House has expressed support for the Senate deal as well.

“The president applauds Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell for working together to forge this compromise and encourages the Congress to act swiftly to end this shutdown and protect the full faith and credit of the United States of America,”press secretary Jay Carney said ahead of the Senate vote.

The 16-day government shutdown has cost the US $1.7 billion per week in lost economic output, according to a study by IHS Global Insight, a Massachusetts-based research firm.

Major US creditors like China –  which holds $1.3 trillion in US Treasuries – have openly discussed “de-Americanizing” as the crises-hopping US government has become increasingly volatile to the world economy. China has introduced a so-called “haircut,” or a discount, on the value of US Treasuries held as collateral against futures trades.

Developing and developed nations are equally concerned, and institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have issued several warnings.

Upon news of a deal, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up by more than 200 points.

“Investors are relieved that it looks like we’re not going to go over the cliff,” Ben Hart, a research analyst at the Pennsylvania-based Haverford Trust Co., told Bloomberg News. “It takes the worst case scenario off the table.”

The Senate deal will provide back pay to furloughed government workers and will allow the US Treasury to pay US debt bills should Congress not come to an agreement on the ceiling by February 7.

In addition, the deal comes with an income verification requirement for anyone receiving health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

Rock music set to classic stories can be risky and tricky to pull off.  Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice’s winning high-octane production  “Jesus Christ Superstar” comes to mind as a show that beat the odds.  It is a production that successfully combined the unimpeachable Bible as source material along with the creative muses of Weber and Rice.  In the English-speaking world, however, Shakespeare as source material sets into motion the guardians of the Bard’s work against those who would mess with his brilliant iambic pentameter text.  If there is a sniff in the air of someone who wants to change the basic elements of his many works, alarm bells go off.

“Romeo and Juliet” is arguably the world’s greatest romantic tragedy ever written.  One had better have a darn good reason for tweaking and/or setting the story to music.  Having said that, I honestly believe the gifted trio of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents had solid reasons to brilliantly give the world a new and relevant Romeo and Juliet story set to music –  “West Side Story”.

“The Last Goodbye” had its world premiere at the 2010 Williamstown Theatre Festival, and since then has been a work in progress undergoing one “musical autopsy” after another in an effort to ensure that the work will find a friendly regional theatre stage to call home for awhile.   This hybrid version of the Romeo and Juliet story set to music, launches the Barry Edelstein artistic directorship era at the Old Globe.  His track record in New York, the Public Theatre, and other first tier regional theatres is impressive and bodes well for audiences of San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.

In this Old Globe production conceived and adapted by Michael Kimmel, director Alex Timbers incorporates the music and lyrics of the late rock singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley to tell the story of literature’s most famous star-crossed lovers. Director Timbers has mounted a production that appears to target a younger audience with actors who speak the text with American accents (not necessarily a bad decision that is if the younger audience can tear their eyes away from their ubiquitous and addictive I-Phones long enough to become engaged).   Timbers’ sometimes, inspired directorial choices allow Buckley’s vernacular lyrics to help move the famous love story along for a more contemporary audience.  I’m not quite sure that screeching electric guitars, however, are  the best instruments of choice when it comes to a re-telling of a classic, iconic, romantic tragedy.  The over fifty crowd favors the more traditional version as penned by the Bard some four hundred years ago. But then again, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

The production projects a sense of ambivalence when it comes to the intent and vision of director Timbers as to which style he wants his audience to accept.   Are we being treated to a modern musical in style and substance or are we watching a Shakespearean classic drama interspersed with music and lyrics?  The result being that’s it’s neither fish nor fowl.  Gorgeously mounted and staged, the show is a visual feast for the eyes in the departments of Set Design by Christopher Barreca, and Lighting Design by Justin Townsend.

During the Renaissance the competitive spirit and pride of Italy’s many city-states was colorful and ferocious.  In Act 1, the characters all appear to look and dress alike –mainly in black.  It’s the new choice of costumers these days.  Some charcters are costumed as a mixed bag of modern and hybrid costumes by designer Jennifer Moeller.  While the color-blind casting concerning the houses of Montague and Capulet, with their many cousins and family members is commendable, audience eyes tend roam in the early scenes as they try to identify the principle players, along with who belongs to whom, which tends to obscure rather than bring clarity to the story and on-stage action.

Act II, after all the tweaking, trimming, slicing and dicing has been done, is the more powerful and the more emotion-packed of the two acts.   The death scene in the family vaults is especially affecting and poignant, and underscores the folly of division and revenge as a way of life.  Fight Director, Kate Waters can take a bow for her creative and energetic staging of all the swordplay and fight scenes.  Ditto for Sonya Tayeh’s choreography.

“The Last Goodbye” features a cast of nineteen talented performers led by Jay Armstrong Johnson and Talisa Friedman as the star-crossed lovers.  Johnson has the vocal range and acting chops required for Romeo but his falsetto is strongly tested by Buckley’s music (Roy Orbison and David Gates may have thrived on falsetto performances, but neither had to prove themselves as actors).

Friedman has a lovely voice and her harmony duets with Johnson are tender and poignant.  She may not look fourteen (Juliet’s alleged age), but then there are only so many Olivia Hussey’s that come along in a generation.  Also, the production is blessed with outstanding support from:  Brandon Gill as Benvolio; Stephen Bogardus as Friar Laurence; Hale Appleman as Mercutio; Jeremy Woodard as Tybalt; Tonye Patano as the Nurse; and Daniel Oreskes as Lord Capulet.

As to whether the “The Last Goodbye” will become a successful stage version other companies might like to produce in the future … well, it’s a little too early to tell.

The Old Globe production currently on the boards may not be my personal favorite as a   musical, but one cannot deny the passion and the talent of the actors who are working very hard to make it an evening in the theatre that one will remember.  The production runs through November 3 at the Old Globe’s Donald and Darlene Shiley stage in San Diego.