Lord Montague (Chris Courtenay) and Lord Capulet (Geoffrey Towers) are the heads of two families lethally at war with each other in the Italian city-state of Verona. Prince Escalus (Christopher Gilling) warns them to stop fighting. Montagues Mercutio (Philip Correia) and Benvolio (Andrew Venning) get into a fight with Capulet Tybalt (Brendan Quinn) which pacific Montague Romeo (Andrew Hayden-Smith) tries to break up. But his intervention lets Tybalt stab and kill Mercutio, so in revenge Romeo stabs and kills Tybalt. Prince Escalus banishes him to nearby Mantua. Romeo's just fallen in love with 13-year-old Capulet Juliet (Ami Sayers) after meeting her at a masked ball given by her father Lord Capulet and mother Lady Capulet (Pamela Hall) and secretly married her. Juliet's Nurse (Susan Penhaligon) has been their go-between, and Friar Laurence Scott Christie) has married them.

Unfortunately the Capulet parents have promised Paris (Adam J Carpenter) that he can marry Juliet. Juliet and Romeo have sex and he goes off to Mantua, eluding the Watchman (Philip Correia). Friar Laurence also makes drugs and gives Juliet a liquid to swallow that makes her look dead. The idea is that she'll be taken to a tomb from which Romeo can rescue her. All goes OK, but Friar John (Brendan Quinn), who is given the letter to tell Romeo what has really happened can't deliver it. Instead, Benvolio gets to Romeo and tells him what he believes - that Juliet is dead. Romeo buys a suicide poison off an Apothecary (Chris Courtenay), goes to Juliet's apparent corpse, swallows it and dies. Juliet wakes up, finds him dead, and stabs herself to death. The Montagues and Capulets attend the double funeral and perhaps stop quarrelling.

The play is presented in modern clothes and the original language of writer William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The cast are all individually very good-looking, which colours-in the romantic overtone of a play whose centre is apparently a love-story. Only apparently, because - as this skilfully slimmed-down but still 2-hour-including-interval version makes clear - the engine driving the story is the futility of tit-for-tat, of revenge, of hatred, of not being able to lose face. The characters of the title are in some ways incidental, icing, and it's often the other people who get the best lines - and scenes.

Chris Courtenay's Montague and Geoffrey Towers's Capulet - the gangmasters, and there's a clear analogy to modern-day urban fighting - look terrific. Chris Courtenay's Montague has a gorgeously-chiselled face that could be carved from flint - no mercy there, and sadly not too many spoken lines either. In compensation the Montague family is given more stage-time via its other characters. Geoffrey Towers's Capulet has a mad beard and a mad character, like a stark-raving-bonkers chartered accountant. His hair-trigger temper and its extreme nature, richotetting back to husbandly and fatherly affection and tolerance suggests the vein of irrationality that's helping keep the warfare alive. It's very fine acting within a well-written part. Christopher Gilling presents Prince Escalus as a matinee-idol handsome chap with a robust line in breaking up fights and delivering justice, combined with a sense of hopelessness in ever being able to make them see sense - a gracefully-judged, sensitive and authoritative performance.

Philip Correia makes Mercutio into more than a reckless lad up for a fight - though he is that, and it's well-brought-out. His Mercutio has the silly bravado backed up with raw courage that set the conflict in the play alight, but also a thoughtfulness - this Mercutio has a brain. Torn jeans, too, which contrast manfully with Benvolio's frankly fashion-crime Beach-Boys shirt. Andrew Venning presents Benvolio with enthusiasm, evoking a man without too much brain or sense, engagingly. Brendan Quinn's Tybalt is the play's second man with a beard - perhaps two too many for one production - and possibly to some an irritating one. There's a sense of satisfaction when he gets stuck with Romeo's blade, not (only) because of the beard, but because Tybald is written as a bit of a prat. Brendan Quinn delivers this with élan. Andrew Hayden-Smith's handsome Romeo has a thin voice and an easy fluency with Romeo's many (at times seemingly endless) lines. It's an energetic performance.

It must be very hard for a performer to carry off being dead convincingly - partly the pose, partly the breathing, and Juliet can't be an easy part. Shakespeare-worship aside, it's not very well-written. Juliet's a fairly passive player in the story - she gets loved, and dead, and all without many great lines. Ami Sayers is superb as dead Juliet - the elegance of her poses and her look of tranquility evoke the tragedy of Juliet's predicament better than Shakespeare's lines. Her face is not simply pretty but profoundly beautiful, and she gives the character a lovely look visually throughout. But the spoken part of it is not great. Her Juliet's voice trembles in a constant and perhaps irritating tremolo - possibly a directorial choice - and it continues for the extent of the play in which the character speaks - which is a lot of it. It's a shame because the basic voice she gives to the part is pleasant and evocative - just not the warbling.

Pamela Hall's Lady Capulet looks gorgeous - a very beautiful and elegant woman, which feels right for a medieval artistocrat over whom duels were perhaps fought (though this Lady C's husband is padded-out to be a bit too portly for sword-play). Her Lady Capulet combines tired-mother-of-teenage-girl and tired-wife-of-nutcase-husband skilfully with graceful movement. Susan Penhaligon presents Nurse with full-strength camp and Carry On, shamelessly over-acting in a completely delightful way. This nurse doesn't miss a chance of a double-entendre, even those that William Shakespeare didn't realise he was writing.

Scott Christie's Friar Laurence is made up with long lank hair and given a gale-force Scottish accent, matching Nurse's outrageous West-Country voice, and Romeo's reedy Geordie - a set of accents sure to give the production universal appeal on tour. This Friar Laurence has the stereotypes laid out to be a drug dealer straight out of Trainspotting, and his first lines as narrator at the opening scene suggest a couple of very dull hours ahead. But wrongly - as soon as the Friar gets scenes to himself and some decent lines (the opening narration could be easily be cut - it adds nothing to the play and damages its pace) Scott Christie shows his astonishing ability to handle Shakespeare's old-fashioned language and make it work. It's a fine and warm performance, with sensitivity and grace.

Brendan Quinn is very funny indeed as stupid Friar John. There's a beard on this character too, suggesting - alarmingly - that it may be attached to Brendan Quinn rather than his characters. Chris Courtenay, finally getting the lines he doesn't get as Lord Montague, pops up towards the end as the poison-dealing Apothecary. It's a cameo, but a great bit of acting, and he looks completely different - a real skill when productions double up as here for the small parts.

Is writer William Shakespeare really much use today? The language certainly gets in the way, and it's a relief that this is an edited version. But this production really does make Romeo and Juliet work as an enjoyable night out at the theatre - as opposed to punishment, education or moral improvement. The great cast - all of them, and they work together superbly - deserve credit for this, but so do the off-stage lot.

Directors Ben Horslen & John Risebero produce fine staging, tight action and a really driving pace that makes it motor along, even through Shakespeare's at times sagging writing. Designer John Risebero deserves a medal of minimalism for his lovely set. It's a back wall matt black with a couple of invisible doors for getting on-off-stage, a superb apothecary shelf occasionally exposed and lit up for the drugs, and a tilted platform centre-stage that serves as bed and performance space, and to divide the families into two warring sides. His opening and closing scene - the two families on either side of the stage at a funeral, their faces lit, the quiet, explosive plick-sound of each umbrella as it goes up - are bookending masterpieces of chilling (spine-pricking) emotion.

Lighting designer Howard Hudson puts lamps over the whole performance space and applies light sculpturally to the faces of the funeral mourners, the masked ball dancers, the tomb, the fights. His tray of altar-lights carried by the cast and put by them all over the back wall to create Juliet's tomb are master-stroke.

Music purpose-written for plays is often pretty bad in composition and the way it's used. The music here, by James Burrows, is so good that there's almost a waiting for the next bit of it. It's often used for transitions between scenes, and each piece creates a new mood with remarkable effect.

Choreographer Helen Evans's masked ball scene, as the cast move to the centre in stylised lurches, is terrific. The cast are all great movers - which adds to the way the play works emotionally as well as visually - and their coordination and direction in movement by Helen Evans creates real visual delight. Fight Director Keith Ducklin makes the knifing stuff look real - a bit of blood coming from Mercutio would be a bonus - rather than staged, and the knives look convincing.

Cast Credits: (alpha order): Adam J Carpenter - Paris. Scott Christie - Friar Laurence. Philip Correia - Mercutio / Watchman. Chris Courtenay - Montague / Apothecary. Christopher Gilling - Prince Escalus. Pamela Hall - Lady Capulet. Andrew Hayden-Smith - Romeo. Susan Penhaligon - Nurse. Brendan Quinn - Tybalt / Friar John. Ami Sayers - Juliet. Geoffrey Towers - Capulet. Andrew Venning - Benvolio.

Company Credits: Writer - William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Director - Ben Horslen & John Risebero. Designer - John Risebero. Lighting Designer - Howard Hudson. Music - James Burrows. Choreographer - Helen Evans. Fight Director - Keith Ducklin. Sound Designer - uncredited. Technical Manager - Justin Emrys Smith. Stage Manager - Charlotte Priestley. Press & PR - Neil Eckersley Presstitution (www.presstitution.com). Producer - uncredited. Company - Antic Disposition. Website - www.anticdisposition.co.uk. Thanks to: Penny Horner, Jermyn Street Theatre, Neil Eckersley, Mitzi de Margary, Bill Risebero, Christine Risebero; cast of original production: David Alderman, Judy Burgess, Ben Carpenter, Scott Christie, James Mackay, Alexandra Mackenzie, Shaun Morton, Oliver Powell, Bill Risebero, Ami Sayers, Jonathan Silvestri, Owyn Stephens, William Vasey. Jermyn Street Theatre: Artistic Director - Penny Horner

END

John Park

reviewed Thursday 24 April 08 / Jermyn Street Theatre

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008