Bell Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – REVIEW

Bell Shakespeare’s new production of Romeo and Juliet takes the old tropes of the world’s most loved romantic tragedy and turns them on their heads.

Out has gone the emphasises on the “star crossed lovers” and in comes the view of the players through the larger eyes of society and family that have inherited prejudice and behaviour.

Romeo and Juliet director Peter Evans has a clear vision for his interpretation that starts with the players entering a darkened stage area dressed in black.

The play proper then opens with a street brawl between the servants of the long feuding Montague and Capulet families.

 As their characters become more evident, so do their costumes slowly evolve until they reach full finery in the Capulet masque, where everybody is in disguise, with the stages covered in rich Persian carpets.

 Choreographer Simone Sault’s dance sequences gives this scene a great deal of pageantry and beauty that deserves its length and shows how people can come together if their social and familial identities are not evident.

 Romeo Montague (Jacob Warner) has come here in the hope of meeting Rosaline, a Capulet niece.

 Any thoughts for her are thrown aside when Romeo glimpses Juliet (Rose Riley) and both are immediately smitten, an action that seals the events of the world’s greatest fictional tragedy.

 Casting against age or gender has allowed Evans to work with actors who can bring maturity to their interpretation of the text, and this works best for Riley’s Juliet and Blazey Best’s Mercutio.

 Juliet’s traditional portrayal as a ill-fated youthful beauty is overthrown as Riley delivers her lines with a intelligence and articulation that belies the teenage years of her character.

 Best’s energetic Mercutio, Romeo’s close friend and relative of Count Paris, is the pivot on which the play turns; his death signals the play’s shift from a light hearted romantic comedy into a full blown tragedy.

 Mercutio dominates much of the first act in this version and draws out a lot of what we know about Romeo. Best’s portrayal leaves no doubt of her ability to control a scene.

 Warner plays up Romeo as an emerging adult: at one moment boastful and seemingly in command and the next full of doubt with no vision for the future. He makes the most of the two low rise stages to great comedic advantage.

 Lucy Bell’s Nurse is in the difficult position of being Juliet’s attendant and confident who finds herself in the role of go-between for the lovers.

 Bell portrays the Nurse with a love for Juliet, in contrast to the lack of support from her mother, Lady Capulet (Monica Sayers).

 James Evans as the Capulet patriarch at first buys into the ongoing feud, but towards the end it is only he who offers hope for the future.

 Alex King, who like Best, is also cast against gender, gives us a handsome and dignified Paris, while Kyle Morrison as Benvolio and Leinad Walker as Tybalt play their respective roles with a great deal of strength and conviction.

 Robert Menzies’ portrayal of the loyal and well intentioned priest, Friar Laurence, is that of an experienced actor not having to be showy to display his powers.

 Max Lvandvert’s sound design and composition is a lesson in restraint giving the production the right amount of texture, while Benjamin Cisterne’s lighting plan of suspended lights representing mood changes is simple but highly effective.

 Evans has taken Shakespeare’s text as the starting point to give us characters of depth and intimacy who are firmly rooted in the society, families and times of which they belong.

There is an unofficial character in Romeo and Juliet and that is the new adaptable stage of the Neilson Nutshell, which provides an intimate space for the audience with great acoustics.

Until August 27

The Neilson Nutshell, Pier 2/3, 13a Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay

www.bellshakespeare.com.au