Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Nicky Diss
Back once again to a Fullers’ pub garden for the Open Bar theatre company to show us some Shakespeare under the evening sun.
This time around it’s Romeo and Juliet. As they point out in the original song that starts the show, “everybody knows how the story goes” – wise words that form the basis of an accessible, engaging, funny and welcoming version of the play.
This explicit recognition that we’re all in the know here backs up some smart performance choices. As Juliet (she of the Capulet family) and her new paramour Romeo (of the enemy Montague’s) meet, fall in love, get derailed by their families’ enmity and suffer the ultimate consequences of poor fortune we have a number of asides, new jokes and tweaks to bring the audience into the play’s world smoothly.
The cast delivers Shakespeare’s words and poetry with a modern rhythm and speech pattern ensuring we see recognisable and relatable interaction not just declamations from the stage. It makes a massive difference here in a play stuffed full of some gorgeously flowery language. Some direct acknowledgements that the text is a bit dense are also shared – comforting the audience that the complex “goose” wordplay between Romeo and his pal Mercutio is hard to take, and even cutting a lengthy Friar Laurence speech as unnecessary towards the end.
Individual performances are top quality too. As Romeo, Thomas Delacourt morphs the young man from moany simp to passionate lover with seeming ease, and as his opposite, Juliet, Princess Donnough, shows a sweet but steeled young woman (even through frequent reminders she is still just 13). Vicky Gaskin in multiple roles (as well as the production’s movement director) offers us a hilarious take on the Nurse, and as Mercutio Thomas Judd brings us exactly the energy and freewheeling funny bawdiness everyone wants on a Friday night in a buzzy pub garden.
They whizz around scaffolding poles and platforms (with the obligatory flowery balcony perched up top for Juliet to keen through) and fight thrilling rapier skirmishes (wonderfully fight directed by Annie Lees-Jones) with pace and a parkour-like grace. Nicky Diss (who also directs the company’s other touring production of Twelfth Night) has taken a very familiar story and injected much vitality and warmth into it, with her snappy production carried off delightfully by all concerned.
Runs until 11 August 2023 then tours
