But rescuing things from total arched-eyebrow overload is Kirsty Bushell, wonderful as a loud, awkward, oversharing Juliet. It is punk as fuck and often very funny, bristling with energy and clever, witty little ideas (the actor playing the Capulets’ dog, for starters), even if there is the sense that Kramer is as concerned with trolling us as moving us.Įdward Hogg’s sulky emo Romeo is all gothy fringe and exaggerated Kevin the Teenager mannerisms. Kramer has rendered Shakespeare’s passionate love story as a sort of savagely ironic vaudeville, in which a cast of white-faced grotesques – many notably older than the usual casting – enact the Bard’s tale of star-crossed lovers with a sort of surreal, vicious sarcasm. It’s hard to quite imagine which bit they’d like the least, though I’d probably put a flutter on the Capulet ball scene, in which the outlandishly dressed cast – Capulet Snr is wearing an amazing dinosaur costume – launch into a very, very amplified rendition of ‘YMCA’ underneath a gigantic glitterball. I doubt Rice would be so petty, but clearly this show embodies everything that freaked the board out. She was, however, allowed one more outdoor season, and it’s hard not to gleefully fantasise that its opener ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – directed by new ENO boss Daniel Kramer – as one almighty fuck you to the board. Take a picnic, hope the sun is out and snoop around a few pretty bits of greenery you might ordinarily not get to see.You would have to have been exiled to Verona to be unaware of the Globe’s recent troubles, wherein its artistic director Emma Rice – who only started last year – has been forced out by the theatre’s board, who objected to her penchant for using electric lights and amplified sound in the replica Elizabethan theatre. To use a hackneyed expression sincerely, it’s family entertainment. This ‘Romeo and Juliet’ doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but that’s not the point. There’s unintended humour in the wailing. When events turn tragic, a few key scenes falter. Things get a bit hammy after the interval – not helped by a couple of stiff performances. This production’s breathless, knockabout tone works best for the play’s frothier first half. There’s also great work from Liz Marsh as Juliet’s nurse, somewhere between panto dame and the latest addition to Albert Square. Indigo Griffiths and Adam Strawford make for a refreshingly un-irritating pair of star-crossed lovers, sweeping us up in their initial, giddy enthusiasm. There’s a fun, 1950s Verona vibe to the costumes and music (the cast play the instruments), as teenage rebel Romeo and Juliet embark on a doomed love affair with definitely the most famous ending in history. And there’s a distinctly Globe feel to her production of ‘Romeo & Juliet’, from the opening and closing dances to the clear, unpretentious storytelling. Braving British weather that’s liable to change as fast as Romeo dumps Rosaline for Juliet, Shakespeare in the Squares is back for its second summer: touring the Bard’s enduring romantic tragedy around nine of London’s garden squares.ĭirector Tatty Hennessy assistant directed on the Globe’s recent world tour of ‘Hamlet’.
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