Reviews

Romeo & Juliet

| Off-West End |

18 November 2010

Andrew Cleaver’s production of Romeo and Juliet moves the play to a modern setting. Instead of bloody, feuding families we have political parties. Montague and Capulet are recast as Clegg and Cameron look-a-likes. Thankfully, this ill-devised time shift has little bearing on the staging itself.

As Romeo, Tom Eykelhof was earnest and engaging. But it was Marian Elizabeth’s Juliet who proved the lynch-pin of this production. Charming, sweet and definitely more sinned against than sinning, she speaks Shakespeare’s lines with feeling and had just the right note of innocence. As her vain mother, Hannah Rousell is a powerful presence.

Overall, however, the cast seemed unsteady and awkward. Cleaver’s attempt to give the play a new angle for the “coalition-age” is clumsy and requires too much wresting of the characters and plot: the nurse becomes a security guard, the apothecary a drug dealer.

The space itself is incredibly difficult: two enormous pillars dominate the performance area and the audience sit on three sides meaning that no one in the theatre has a perfect view.

One directorial decision which paid off was to cast Benvolio as a woman (Benvolia, played by Helen Perry). This created an interesting sexual tension between her and Romeo – but this was the one instance of innovation in an otherwise predictable and pedestrian staging.

– Elizabeth Davis