Never has there been a tale of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo...

This was the first production by The Royal Shakespeare Company which I had seen, and I know that they are the Shakespeare ‘experts,’ but I didn’t know what to expect as there have been that many interpretations of Romeo and Juliet in its 511 year history. What did we get? A very “The Godfather” inspired performance.

The stage opened to all the cast on stage wearing typical 1930’s Italian costumes –peasants, widows, noblemen and typical workers of the time. There was also a traditional Italian Tarantella band on stage that provided eerie music at heightened points of tension throughout the play, ranging from a re-working of ‘The Godfather Waltz’ to a typical Tarantella dance.

The chorus’ opening speech setting the tale of the ‘star crossed lovers’ was well done in the way that the ‘voice’ stepped out from the crowd to make their speech. The setting throughout was quite plain, but also very clever. There were only black panels on stage and black chairs, but the lighting (of only blues, reds and whites,) changed at the protagonists’ click of fingers. (The set did change however for the final scene in the Capulet’s vault, as Mafioso type characters (who I realised eventually represented ghosts,) revolved the panels to form a tomb.)

Not using microphones, the cast did a very good job of projecting over the hoards of rowdy school kids in the auditorium, who found that laughing at important moments and wolf whistling at kisses quite hilarious. The cast themselves were quite diverse too. To say it was set in 1930’s Verona, there were many different voices of Scotch, Welsh, English and one Juliet’s mother could easily have passed at the part of Eva Peron.

Speaking of Evita, Juliet’s shadow cast on the back wall of the stage when stood on her bed (doubling as her balcony,) was very Peron-esque from the Balcony of the Casa Rosada. –Just a nice little point there!

Some of the choreographed fight sequencing was almost certainly West End Story inspired, primarily due to the fact that flick-knives were used. A nice effect was the use of a ‘Flash, Bang, Wallop!’ type camera effect, which blinded at least the first 10 rows of the audience.

Personally, for me, the best part of the show was the Tarantella band. Being half Italian, this music I was quite familiar with on recordings and such, but to actually hear one live, adding to the tension of one of Shakespeare’s finest plays was fantastic. They added a haunting undertone to the play, stepping out ‘from the blackness’ with their music commenting on the action.

In comparison to the production of Othello last month, there were many. RSC obviously do Shakespeare ‘the best,’ there is no comparison. Their performance was practically faultless, and they all kept their characters –something which those in Othello did not do. It was also evident that the cast knew their characters well as they all added their own little quirks to them.

A very good performance indeed!
S.L.