Juliet & her Romeo - Bristol Old Vic
First, a confession. I only saw the first half of Juliet & her Romeo, for one simple reason: neither my companion nor I could face another hour and a half of writhing in our seats. And that was not just due to the ancient seating which still graces the Old Vic.
Juliet & her Romeo is a ‘restaging’ of Shakespeare’s piece in an old folks’ home, divided - as is carefully explained at the start - into the Montague ward for state patients and the Capulet ward for private patients. Juliet (Sian Philips) and Romeo (Michael Byrne) are elderly residents, enjoying a flush of teen romance in their twilight years. On paper, it sounds like a nice conceit which might work well, a chance to explore the taboo of love (and lust) in old age. And it gives actors who are half a century past their flush of youth an unexpected chance to tackle a romantic lead.
And therein lies the biggest rub. These are actors who learnt their Shakespearean craft half a century ago, when Olivier’s bombast and posturing was the touchstone for the Bard. To a modern audience, accustomed to a more thoughtful, naturalistic performance, a Shakespeare which is played not delivered, the performances are mannered, the verse chanted, the meaning lost in ‘acting by the book’ - a book which went out the window decades ago. Any play where Romeo delivers the line ‘”But soft, what light …” facing the audience with his back to the balcony has a long way to go to achieve the realism and engagement offered - ironically- down the road from the Old Vic at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory. It is a long time since I have seen Romeo and Juliet played this badly, and I still bear the scars of Malachi Bogdanov’s sci-fi production.
But even this would be tolerable, if what happened around this retro performance style were good theatre. But the younger cast members (the nurse, the care home director) play their parts as if they were appearing in Holby City or a medical comedy on BBC Three.
In the hands of a more accomplished director of Shakespeare who was less willing to allow the elderly actors their head, the concept behind Juliet & her Romeo might have worked. Instead, it offers the magnificent Sian Philips surprisingly out of her depth, and Romeo played like an Act IV King Lear.
That latter thought did, however, provoke one bright idea. Would a Lear played by an actor in his 40s (my companion dreamily suggested Sam West) versed in modern Shakespearean acting achieve a whole new level of depth and richness? Now that’s a production I’d like to see.
Juliet & her Romeo is a ‘restaging’ of Shakespeare’s piece in an old folks’ home, divided - as is carefully explained at the start - into the Montague ward for state patients and the Capulet ward for private patients. Juliet (Sian Philips) and Romeo (Michael Byrne) are elderly residents, enjoying a flush of teen romance in their twilight years. On paper, it sounds like a nice conceit which might work well, a chance to explore the taboo of love (and lust) in old age. And it gives actors who are half a century past their flush of youth an unexpected chance to tackle a romantic lead.
And therein lies the biggest rub. These are actors who learnt their Shakespearean craft half a century ago, when Olivier’s bombast and posturing was the touchstone for the Bard. To a modern audience, accustomed to a more thoughtful, naturalistic performance, a Shakespeare which is played not delivered, the performances are mannered, the verse chanted, the meaning lost in ‘acting by the book’ - a book which went out the window decades ago. Any play where Romeo delivers the line ‘”But soft, what light …” facing the audience with his back to the balcony has a long way to go to achieve the realism and engagement offered - ironically- down the road from the Old Vic at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory. It is a long time since I have seen Romeo and Juliet played this badly, and I still bear the scars of Malachi Bogdanov’s sci-fi production.
But even this would be tolerable, if what happened around this retro performance style were good theatre. But the younger cast members (the nurse, the care home director) play their parts as if they were appearing in Holby City or a medical comedy on BBC Three.
In the hands of a more accomplished director of Shakespeare who was less willing to allow the elderly actors their head, the concept behind Juliet & her Romeo might have worked. Instead, it offers the magnificent Sian Philips surprisingly out of her depth, and Romeo played like an Act IV King Lear.
That latter thought did, however, provoke one bright idea. Would a Lear played by an actor in his 40s (my companion dreamily suggested Sam West) versed in modern Shakespearean acting achieve a whole new level of depth and richness? Now that’s a production I’d like to see.
posted by Toby at 12:23 pm
