Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Rebecca Frecknall
Romeo and Juliet is rare among Shakespeare’s plays for telling us up front how long it should take. And yet many productions, and directors, take the prologue’s declaration about “the two hours’ traffic of our stage” with a pinch of salt, or ignore it completely. It’s not hard to see why: to get through the full production in such a time would require all the actors to go at such a pace that neither they nor the audience could pause to contemplate either language or characterisation.
And yet the Almeida’s new production, under the eye of renowned director Rebecca Frecknall, manages to fit the story neatly into that two-hour target time. That is managed by losing some things, of course; an interval, for one, and some of the material in Acts IV and V that would otherwise take attention away from the titular star-cross’d lovers.
It’s also helped by an early pace which treats the characters’ Shakespearean dialogue as completely normal, rather than taking a reverential approach to the text. The young Montagues and Capulets verbally spar with one another with fiery wit, lines delivered with a clarity of intent that makes the Elizabethan phraseology feel immediate and contemporary.
Central to this is Toheeb Jimoh’s Romeo, who arrives both full of poetic adoration for the unseen Rosaline, but also self-aware enough to know how his flights of fancy make him sound to his friends. The Montagues’ banter becomes playful, especially with the arrival of Mercutio. Jack Riddiford’s take on the character is an instantly recognisable archetype: the cocky, talkative friend whose constant commentary on anything and everything is tolerated because they are so humorous.
Within the other of Verona’s two houses, the Capulets can risk feeling a little more staid in comparison. But that works in Juliet’s favour; Isis Hainsworth portrays her as headstrong without veering into petulance, a young woman stifled by the future laid out of her by her parents. As is expected, she has a closer relationship with her Nurse (Jo McInnes) than either of her parents, but even then, she only comes alive when in the presence of Jimoh’s Romeo.
The couple’s chemistry is enhanced by Frecknall and designer Chloe Langford keeping most of the cast onstage or sitting to the side throughout. Often when the young lovers are apart, and one is speaking, the other is still physically present, as they are in the character’s mind. So too, of course, are the rest of each household, their feud omnipresent.
Scene transitions, and some scenes themselves, are enhanced with music and short dance sequences. Frecknall dips freely into Sergei Prokofiev’s music for his ballet of the story, its stirring orchestrations rarely bettered for its interpretation. The choreography combines classical ballet with more modern, Fosse-like moves; as with the rest of the piece, the fusion of styles across the centuries is seamless and effective.
As the play descends from the dizzying romanticism of its opening acts to the tensions and tragedies that form the play’s back half, Frecknall allows the play to slow down in terms of sitting with each character and their torment while always ensuring that the story pushes on. Conversations between Juliet and her Nurse, and between Romeo and Paul Higgins’ Friar Laurence, play out in parallel, emphasising the couple’s mutual and differing circumstances.
Those aforementioned excisions in later elements of the play retain the focus and drive as the final tragedy unfolds. We know how it ends, a series of misunderstandings that could so easily form the basis of a farce instead of a tragedy. By the end, Hainsworth and Jimoh have captured the central characters’ essence so effectively that their mutual demise is still shocking and heartfelt.
And that is true of the rest of Frecknall’s production. There is clarity throughout that demonstrates more than just how understandable Shakespeare is when done well. It also shows that its tale of a love that cares not for petty feuding, of young people caught up in violence not of their own making, is a play for today.
Continues until 29 July 2023
