You’d never, surely, describe Romeo and Juliet as one of William Shakespeare’s funnier plays. However, Bell Shakespeare’s latest production highlights the humour in the famous tragedy, before bringing the hammer down in the back half. It’s an interesting approach that could, in other hands, undermine the play’s central thematic concerns – but here, the contrast works wonders.
Of course, this is not director Peter Evan’s first at-bat with R&J – he mounted a lavish production in 2016 when he first took up the reins as artistic director of Bell Shakespeare. This production, however, is a more streamlined, minimalist affair. Set and costume designer Anna Tregloan dresses Bell’s new HQ, The Neilson Nutshell, with a couple of raised platforms and a scattering of carpets and wooden stools. The cast is dressed in stylish but functional black, the addition of brighter accessories marking the crucial Capulet ball scene when our star-cross’d lovers first meet.
...hearing this old song sung in a new register is nothing less than exhilarating
Jacob Warner’s Romeo here is capricious, charming, and more than a little blind to the consequences of his actions. More than a little ink has been spilled on the notion that Romeo is the OG fuckboi (most prominently in the pop musical & Juliet, currently playing in Melbourne to great fanfare), his dalliance with Juliet more of a passing obsession than true love, and Warner leans into that ambiguity. Warner drops lines such as “Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” with a disarming casualness that wrung laughs from the audience, but also underlines that the death and heartbreak that we know is coming may be born from immaturity rather than immortal love.
Rose Riley is revelatory as Juliet, splitting the difference between innocence and sensuality, effortlessly commanding the audience’s attention. The ambiguity that is the hallmark of this production is at its most prominent in Juliet’s characterisation and position within the narrative – she’s a headstrong young woman struggling to find her own place in the world, and a political pawn caught between feuding noble houses. She’s a young person discovering her own sexuality and desires – and she is also a child. Various characters ruminate on the fact that she’s yet to turn 14, which is not new info for those familiar with the text, but it hits differently here. Evans and his team are taking pains to not simply play the material as it lays; we’re being asked to interrogate it, to examine the societal mores that underpin this most famous of love stories.
Among a uniformly excellent ensemble, Blazey Best stands as the swaggering, impetuous Mercutio, while Leinad Walker is all pantherish grace and quick temper as Tibalt. It’s also worth noting that the fight choreography by Nigel Poulton is excellent. Making stage combat both safe and dramatically satisfying is hard enough; here the cast employ the Italian fencing style, fighting with both a rapier and a parrying dagger in the off hand – which is both period accurate and considerably more complex. It’s a little touch, perhaps, but a welcome one.
But this is a production that blends old and new, mingling such flourishes with a modern approach to staging. Actors frequently blend in with the audience, emerging from the stalls to strut their hour upon the stage, and at one key point a handful of theatregoers were invited to dance at the Capulet ball – a risky but rather charming and effective gambit.
One of the key challenges in mounting Shakespeare is finding ways to explore less well-trodden areas of inquiry while retaining the ineffable essence of the work; Evans and his team have well and truly achieved that here. Romeo and Juliet is a story we all know like the backs of our hands, but hearing this old song sung in a new register is nothing less than exhilarating.
Romeo and Juliet plays at The Neilson Nutshell, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay, from June 23 to July 29. Tickets range from $35-$110. Book over here.