ROMEO AND JULIET - ARTS THEATRE
Tragedy – should it make us happy? There are many ways to freshen and excite an audience usually pretty well versed in Shakespeare’s most famous verse play. It’s a great challenge for directors to come up with something new. In the Marlowe Society’s new production, directed by Josh Seymour, there were indeed some interesting ideas. But not that many. Let’s start though with two bright innovations.
First the production does away with swords. Those of a nervous disposition, those who flinch from stage rapiers or blanche at the sound of steel on steel, can be put at ease. The warring Montagues and Capulets fight each other with coloured dust: red for one, blue for the other. Here in this fair Verona, dust can kill. I liked the idea though and there was something illusionary and a tad magical in the pugilistic powders.
The second good idea was to open the play with R&J’s respective mothers holding them as babies, each robed in their respective colours: red for a Montague, blue for Capulet. The innocent crying babes destined for (spoiler alert) doom.
These two ideas were though the exception rather than the rule. The production lacked coherence. As an example, it is fine to present the play in modern dress but some thought should go into colour and style. The red/blue theme was not consistent. It was a kind of ‘come as you please’, Primark look of everyday tee shirts and jeans. There was also a serious problem with clarity of delivery. So many of the actors gabbled their words, dropped consonants or rushed through the verse.
The set was simple – huge hangings and a myriad of wooden chairs some of which were re-arranged as J’s balcony. The seating theme was taken up by an impressive hanging of smashed chairs. A metaphor, perhaps, of the star-crossed pair’s exploding world?
There were also some very strange and unfathomable choices: the ball scene a kind of masked game that made no sense, Juliet’s faux death in which her body was represented by a scarf that no one behind the second row could see. The young actors often spoke to each other rather than face the front and be clear and although there were some decent performances, the whole thing lacked controlled energy and clarity. This Romeo and Juliet was, sadly, an unhappy tragedy.
