Matthew Bourne has taken Shakespeare’s play and made it into something very much his own, without losing the heart of the story.
Set in the (not too distant?) future in the Verona Institute, which appears to be an asylum/young offenders place of incarceration for youths deemed to be wayward and so may prove to be a problem, or at least an embarrassment, to the state, we see Romeo (Rory Macleod) brought there by his parents, Senator and Mrs Montague. Happy to have their wilful son out of their hair, they are more than willing to sign increasingly large cheques to have him kept there.
Juliet (Cordelia Braithwaite) is already a captive there, and subject to the unwanted attentions of one of the guards, Tybalt (Danny Reubens). While the sexual molestation takes place off stage, the audience is left in no doubt as to the predatory nature of his advances. Tybalt, therefore, does not take kindly to Juliet’s developing relationship with Romeo.
Romeo, meanwhile, falls in with one of the two opposing gangs who dominate the lives of the inmates. This faction is fronted by Mercutio (Ben Brown) who is someone else Tybalt has taken a dislike to, which only makes life even more difficult for our young hero.
This all takes place in Lez Brotherston’s bleak, unrelenting, white set. A high wall broken only by barred doors, with wall ladders and staircases that lead to the balcony, but no further, emphasising that there is no way out for the young lovers.
Finding a new take on this centuries-old tale of teenage love and angst is no mean feat. Most of those who have tried to reshape the story have, with one or two exceptions, been left with something that pales before the original. No such failure here. The fact that the story arc remains, all the way to its tragic conclusion, while not a word of Shakespeare’s script is used, has freed up Bourne to bring his own particular brand of genius to the stage.
To present a Shakespeare play without the bard’s words might, on the face of it, seem an improbable, if not impossible, task. In the hands of a lesser talent this might be so, but there are no lesser talents here. Sir Matthew Bourne, Lez Brotherston and the New Adventures Company are uniformly excellent, but if I may be permitted to single out one person for extra praise, it would be Cordelia Braithwaite for her entrancing, heartbreaking, Juliet.
It’s not one for the fainthearted, though, for while the sexual abuse is kept off stage, the violent deaths are not, which means this carries a “suitable for 14+” recommendation.
Jim Welsh
Radio Summerhall Arts 