ROMEO & JULIET To 23 August.
London.
ROMEO AND JULIET
by William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s Globe 21 New Globe Walk SE1 9DT In rep to 23 August 2009.
Runs 3hr One interval.
TICKETS 020 7401 9919 or 020 7087 7398.
www.shakespeares-globe.org
Review Carole Woddis 30 April.
Wonder-working setting for the star-crossed lovers.
Shakespeare Globe’s season has started. So it must be summer. Sam Wanamaker’s visionary theatre was packed for Romeo and Juliet, the inaugural production in their ‘Young Hearts’ season.
Watching Shakespeare’s most beloved play about thwarted lovers and feuding families, as dusk fell it wasn’t difficult to rediscover why this theatre continues to confound its critics. There’s something about the spirit of the place that defies criticism. Okay, you don’t go to the Globe for poetic potency (though its first director, actor Mark Rylance, could sometimes make the stars glitter. But usually words, rhythms evaporate on the wind. Yet, there is a haunting sense of being in something very special, the shared experience itself.
Dominic Dromgoole’s revival may not carry the imprimatur of greatness but to feel the silence engendered in the young audience and the concentration the standing `groundlings’ award the three hours is to be moved all over again by Shakespeare’s capacity to be renewed in the eyes of each new generation.
Dromgoole’s production has the great distinction of unusually fine music from composer Nigel Hess who provides a running musical commentary via a quartet of street singers, singing Italian music of the Elizabethan era but new minted. It sounds beautiful and adds terrific atmosphere to proceedings, either melancholic or bawdy as the situation requires.
Elsewhere, Simon Daw (designer) and Siân Williams (choreographer) combine to create a background and environment reminiscent of Italian Renaissance paintings – full of wonderfully textured silk and satin costumes, and general street hubbub.
It’s very appealing. So, too, is the pace and youthful energy Dromgoole draws from his performers, a mixture of first-timers and skilled hands. Penny Layden, Miranda Foster and Ian Redford make a powerful impression as Nurse and the Capulet parents as do the Maori actor, Rawiri Paratene as Friar Lawrence and Philip Cumbus’ bitter-sweet Mercutio.
As the star-crossed lovers, Ellie Kendrick (BBC TV’s recent Anne Frank) and Adetomiwa Edun are by turns occasionally affecting, headstrong, and doomed without yet having the skill to capture the play’s tragic dimension. A fair start, all the same, and the welcome return of an old friend.
The Prince: Andrew Vincent.
Mercutio: Philip Cumbus.
Paris: Tom Stuart.
Montague: Michael O’Hagan.
Lady Montague: Holly Atkins.
Romeo: Adetomiwa Edun.
Benvolio: Jack Farthing.
Capulet: Ian Redford.
Lady Capulet: Miranda Foster.
Juliet: Ellie Kendrick.
Tybalt: Ukweli Roach.
Nurse: Penny Layden.
Friar Lawrence: Rawiri Paratene.
Chorus/Sampson/Friar John/Constable: James Lailey.
Chorus/Balthazar/Peter/Gregory: Fergal McElherron.
Chorus/Abraham/Apothecary: Graham Vick.
Citizens: Lucy Conway, Jason Carter, Rhoda Ofori-Attah, Stevie Raine.
Quartet: Jack Farthing, James Lailey, Fergal McElherron, Graham Vick.
Musical Director/flute/recorders/shawms/percussion: William Lyons.
Lute/Renaissance guita/baroque guitar/percussion: Armgeir Hauksson.
Percussion/bells: Amy Kelly.
Recorders/shawms/rebec/violin/percussion: Sharon Lindo.
Recorders/shawms/curtal/hurdy-gurdy/percussion: Nicholas Perry.
Director: Dominic Dromgoole.
Designer: Simon Daw.
Composer: Nigel Hess.
Choreographer: Siân Williams.
Movement: Glynn MacDonald.
Voice/Dialect: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Fight director: Malcolm Ranson.
Text work: Giles Block.
Assistant text work: Lotte Wakeman.
2009-05-25 09:41:02