ROMEO AND JULIET. To 2 August.
London.
ROMEO AND JULIET
by William Shakespeare.
Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park In rep to 2 August 2008.
19-21, 23-24, June, 3-5, 7-9, 17-19, 21-23 31 July-2 Aug 8pm.
19,21, 25 June, 3, 5, 17, 19, 31 July, 2 Aug 2.30pm.
Captioned 21 July.
Runs 2hr 45min One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 826 4242.
www.openairtheatre.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 June.
Visually alert production with a Juliet to die for.
Timothy Sheader's production gives full rein to the youthful high spirits of this play’s opening scenes, allowing darkness to fall, in the story and over Regent’s Park, around two energetic, positive lovers. Located in the 1950s – the last time youngsters could be kept under parental thumbs – the young generation’s clothing and hairstyles recall West Side Story, as do the choreographed sequences.
A highly visual production, it opens with sex and violence erupting onto the stage. Like innocents in a maze, Romeo and Juliet wander lovingly through a maze of physicall and, sexually aggressive figures. The soberly-suited Montague and flashily-dressed Capulet stand with guns as their underlings join combat behind them.
There’s a cinematic element to Sheader’s intercut scenes; Juliet asks her Nurse what happened in the street-fight as Romeo walks on; it takes a moment to realise he’s not in the same space as her. He talks with Friar Lawrence, she with the Nurse, on two diagonals, separate yet intertwined as their fates.
And, as the Friar reads the marriage service, he’s drowned by a heavenly choir singing a schmaltzy Ave Maria, before suddenly reverting to street-aggro characters after the golden moment’s over.
It can become suspect, like the bleached white of the lovers’ last-scene clothing (pure Hollywood purity). When he’s frustrated, Capulet beats up wife, daughter and Nurse, showing brutality beginning at home. Clearly, he’s disgusted by, and dismissive of, the sex-seeking lush he's married. It’s a wonder Neet Mohan’s ever-polite Paris wants to marry into the family (in the somewhat abridged ending, it’s good to see he survives).
Ben Joiner’s smiling Tybalt has more self-control than usual in the street scenes. Meanwhile, her parents leave Juliet alone; no wonder the Nurse (Claire Benedict, scoring points against the Montague gang) is her closest friend.
Nicholas Shaw’s Romeo has energy and initiative, though tending to force emotion through the verse, but Laura Donnelly’s Juliet beautifully interfuses feeling with the language. Hugging the sheet from the bed where she’s been with Romeo, or waking from her drug even as Romeo’s taking poison, Donnelly is both centre and heart of the evening.
Sampson: Matthew Hart.
Gregory: Andy Cryer.
Abram/Apothecary: Marcello Walton.
Balthazar: Ben Ingles.
Bianca: Annalisa Rossi.
Benvolio: Leon Williams.
Tybalt: Ben Joiner.
Prince of Verona: Richard Cotton.
Lady Montague: Jennifer Bryden.
Montague: David Whitworth.
Romeo: Nicholas Shaw.
Capulet: Tim Woodward.
Paris: Neet Mohan.
Peter: Dale Superville.
Lady Capulet: Annette McLaughlin.
Nurse: Claire Benedict.
Juliet: Laura Donnelly.
Mercutio: Oscar Pearce.
Friar Lawrence: Richard O’Callaghan.
Friar John: Harry Myers.
Director: Timothy Sheader.
Designer: Robert Innes Hopkins.
Lighting: Simon Mills.
Sound: Fergus O’Hare.
Composer: David Shrubsole.
Movement/Choreographer: Liam Steel.
Voice coach: Carol, Fairlamb.
Fight director: Terry King.
Assistant director: Paul Foster.
Associate designer: Rachael Canning.
2008-06-10 08:44:27