Review: Romeo & Juliet at The Lowry

Nov 15 2008 Chester Chronicle

ROMEO & JULIET/The Lowry, Salford Quays, until November 21

REVIEW/by Peggy Woodcock

A MONOCHROME affair with flashes of brilliance - that was the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet at The Lowry, Salford Quays.

This was a dark production: black, more black, some white and occasional flashes of colour. A bare stage, concealed entrances in the black, back set, atmospheric lighting - pure drama.

And it was a modern, unpredictable, version of the famous Shakespearean tale. Here was a young cast living the text so it was far from uniform. It might flag, but then it flared, unforgettably, as in Juliet’s emotional taking of the sleep-sickness vial, with dark figures, musicians, emerging from the shadows, sounds of funereal jazz coming from their instruments.

Director Neil Bartlett has gone for the guts of the story of the feuding families, young lovers, despotic fathers, brawling children, doting nurse, busybody priest, plans awry, and the final tragic deaths.

So he paid lip service to the romance. The lyrical love prose just wasn’t the same when delivered by Juliet, standing on her brass bed, not a balcony, and by Romeo, cross-legged on the stage!

But, he give us, supremely, the passionately dangerous, testosterone-fuelled atmosphere of this male-dominated society. Arrogant young men in sharp suits had phallic symbol flick knives and relished their sexuality.

Handsome, glamorous in dress suits - very El Divo - they disturbed, frightened as they brawled. Like the drawling saxophone, heels tapping over wooden boards, hurrying dark figures overlapping the scenes, fingers ’clicking’ the light changes, it was all part of the edge.

Sometimes the naturalistic nature of the production meant speech was inaudible, incredible for the RSC. The final double suicide took place within a too-small tomb behind obscuring railings, which lost some of the tragic element.

But, undoubtedly targeting the young and the first-time audience, it had the right impact, and a lot was due to the two leads.

David Dawson was a likeable Romeo who generally delivered the goods, though some of his words were lost. Anneika Rose was an emotional Juliet, and she used voice - and body - to convey it all

Together they gave us the passion, the bravado, the vulnerability of teenagers. Dawson wisecracked, Rose flounced. Dawson mooned. Rose fantasised. No-one else mattered. Together they did that.