Music: Sergei Prokoviev
Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Matthew Bourne
When the endlessly reinterpreted tale of star-crossed lovers gets the Matthew Bourne treatment, you can be sure it will be a production that, while remaining respectful to the original story, and the most popular of ballets, brings something genuinely new. Bourne says of the decision to create the production: “please don’t look for a text-book re-telling of the story” and reminds us that the ballet effectively “takes the Shakespeare out of Shakespeare” replacing the poetry with a new arrangement of Prokofiev’s powerful score.
You wouldn’t necessarily know it, but Bourne’s version is set in the ‘near future’. The Verona Institute is a facility whose purpose is unexplained, full of young people incarcerated for unknown reasons. While they all seem troubled, we don’t know if this is the reason for, or the result of, them being there. Romeo arrives with his sharp-suited, busy parents who unceremoniously and uncaringly dump him there. Juliet is already amongst the inmates, being regularly picked out and humiliated by a sexually abusive guard.
It’s not long before Romeo and Juliet notice each other – gazing into one another’s eyes under a mirror ball at a social dance – a rare break in their strictly gender separated existence. And then it begins – the longing, the secret trysts, the passionate sex, the danger, the intensity and fragility of young minds.
Bourne’s choice to play up the teenage angst, inherent in Shakespeare’s original story, is what really makes this production work. His youthful cast are predominantly making their professional debuts, others were brought into the company (New Adventures) through their pioneering talent development programme. They are of the generation growing up with innumerable pressures on their everyday lives. While referencing what we tend to think about as contemporary issues – poor mental health, knife crime, sexual and physical abuse and bigotry – there’s also a reminder that human behaviour, as well as teenage brains, have not changed that much over the past four hundred years.
The set has a perfectly institutional feel to it – all cream polished tiles, stairs and walkways. Metal frame beds with scratchy grey blankets, wooden school chairs. Bourne’s choreography works in perfect harmony with Lez Brotherston’s design. Dancers climb up and down, and hang from, metal wall bars, menacing figures are seen through glass panelled doors, beds are stood on, lain on, hidden under, pushed around and effortlessly appear and disappear from the stage. Nothing is extraneous. Terry Davies’s new, stripped back arrangement of the score, written for an orchestra of sixteen musicians, has the same simplicity, and Bourne doesn’t waste a note of it.
While this production is not an easy watch – Bourne doesn’t shy away from aggression, violent abuse and blood (there’s LOTS of blood) – there are wonderfully sensual duets and delightful playfulness from Cordelia Braithwaite (Juliet) and Paris Fitzpatrick (Romeo). There’s also no shortage of gentle comic relief. Daisy May Kemp plays a charmingly funny vicar who replaces Friar Laurence, and there’s some lovely matey tomfoolery from Rory MacLeod (Mercutio), Euan Garrett (Benvolio) and Jackson Fisch (a new addition – Balthasar, Mercutio’s boyfriend). The whole company, though, create powerful and beautifully delivered ensemble scenes – creating a backdrop of both the mundanity and chaos of institutional life. Lez Brotherston’s costume design, which puts the company in a sea of utilitarian white uniforms, hugely adds to these scenes.
This is a tough, fresh and hugely enjoyable re-telling of a classic tale. Everything comes together to create a brilliant, memorable production that proves Bourne and New Adventures can still surprise, shock and delight.
Runs until 15 July 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
unwavering, fresh, brilliant
