Peter Viney's Blog

Romeo & Juliet
by William Shakespeare

Directed by Daniel Kramer
Designed by Soutra Gilmour
Music by Ben de Vries

Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Thursday 25^th May 2017 14.00

CAST

Jac Adu-Sarkodie – Dancer
Siobhan Athwal – Dancer
Kirsty Bushell – Juliet
Ricky Champ – Tybalt
Tim Chipping – Paris
Blythe Duff – Nurse
Keith Gilmore – Prince / Dancer
Edward Hogg – Romeo
Martina Laird – Lady Capulet
Jonathan Livingstone – Benvolio
Sian Martin – Lady Montague
Harish Patel – Friar Lawrence
Golda Rosheuvel – Mercutio
Gareth Snook – Capulet

Kirsty Bushell as Juliet, Edward Hogg as Romeo

A really hard one. We were walking from the Barbican to our hotel on the South Bank on one of the first nights of Romeo & Juliet. As we passed the Globe, there were roars of excitement and massive applause ringing out. It was just ending its evening show. The next day, as we often do, we had breakfast at the Swan restaurant at The Globe. We chatted to volunteers who had seen Romeo & Juliet and they said they had had large school parties in and the kids were ecstatic about the production. It was totally different, but exciting. So our expectations were raised.

Then we read the reviews. Even Michael Billington of The Guardian who I have read for years and rate most highly of all, gave it one star. There is a consensus that this production is two fingers to the critics of Emma Rice’s regime at The Globe and a deliberate one. I have written on the furore. I agree that The Globe has beenmisused and it was appalling to permanently damage the fabric by screwing in speakers and extra lights, though I thought Rice’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream stunningly good. As I said, Imogen would have been acclaimed at The National or RSC, but creating a plastic proscenium curtained stage across The Globe was stupid. Sam Wanamaker created The Globe for a purpose. Yes, foreign visitors and many British ones DO want to see Jacobean costume. Yes, they do want acoustic instruments and live music, not amplified recordings. There are so many theatres in which to do other things.

Romeo & Juliet is said to be the most accessible “first Shakespeare play” for schoolkids. It’s proven sturdy enough to survive updating … the Leonardo DiCaprio movie being a strong case in favour. On the other hand, this is The Globe. It is a reconstruction of Shakespeare’s theatre, and I would argue that in this place, in the summer term with so many school parties, it would have great educational value to play it of its time.

Having read the reviews (with major quotes below), the question is whether the production is as dreadful as they say. It also has to be taken into comparison with Kenneth Branagh’s fabulous stylish Italian 1950s production of Romeo and Juliet  in 2016 with its charismatic young lovers. I can see why Mr Billington gave it one star. However, in the light of his two stars for Emma Rice’s magnificent Twelfth Night, I sense the sound of an axe being ground.

When it was good, it was very good, but when it was bad … it was indeed horrid.

I’ve spent years teaching English. Foreign learners find it hard to hear the difference between fourteen and forty. They’re not alone. Juliet in the text (here) is fourteen. Our teenage swains here are around forty. Gender defying casting here has Mercutio as female. Not good.

The set has swathes of black and two black cruise missiles hanging overhead. It has an area of fake grass at the front.  The Globe never used to need a set. It was the set. As we were waiting (the pre-show activities of the Dromgoole regime have gone, sadly) I heard someone ask why two black dolphins were suspended over the stage. A reasonable error. I saw absolutely no point in having them. This is set design by Soutra Gilmour, who I have admired for years. It’s truly dire. Very bad.

Romeo (Edward Hogg) and The Nurse (Blythe Duff)

The costumes were mainly black, and everyone had clown make up. I thought of scary clowns. It meant we were in Classical Greek theatre … no facial expressions. Try facial acting if you’re Benvolio with a big red grin painted on. Lucky Mercutio (not Mercutia?) had half and half face paint, so she could do half an expression. I imagine the reference was partly the “scary clowns” fuss of a few months ago, but mainly Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride, hence all the black and white. Definitely Tim Burton inspired the look of Romeo and Juliet. There was a touch of Clockwork Orange in the bowler hats, and Montague Senior and Capulet senior were dressed identically in them. Don’t know

There was a point that was gradually revealed. Everyone had the face paint masks, but our two lovers very gradually lost their face paint, so that by the final scene only a few smears were left, while those surrounding them were still “masked.” Significant, and deliberate.  So all the adults are nightmare people, from which Romeo & Juliet emerge losing the paint. Bad most of the way, but at the end, good.

L to R: Mercutio, Juliet, Friar Lawrence, Romeo, Tybalt

The direction had some oddities. It certainly did make use of the Globe stage, in that the balcony was used, Romeo spent so much time speaking from the pit that he must have made friends down there on a daily basis. Actors were expected to do a balletic circle of the whole stage on entry and exit and in between, so there was a lot of running around across the full width.  The balcony scene had Romeo in the pit, but Juliet above him on the stage, which she needed so she could run in circles. (Er, the Globe has a balcony built into the structure). Good to use the theatre as it is, but the amount of circling was distractingly bad.

The “Prince / Duke” was an amplified voice booming through a microphone with tons of echo.  I think recorded. Impressive in a way, but not The Globe. In Act two, when Romeo and Juliet were on the bed faces turned away from us, the presence of their mics became obvious … the vocal amplification went past the “apparently natural” levels earlier. Bad sound move.

Tybalt looked the part. However he had to double (both before and after his death) as The Capulets large dog. No, I don’t remember it in the script either. Very funny the first time. Good. At one time the dog produced a bottle and pissed over everyone. (See Dominic Cavendish’s comment below). Confusing later. Definitely pantomime cat / dog. Bad.

Mercutio as a woman? OK, Branagh had Mercutio as an elderly man. You can play with it, and it added a dimension. I found Romeo writhing about on top of her bad. At one point she had to strip down to bra and pants. The temperature in there was in the high 20s Celsius. A sweat line along the bottom crack is not becoming. Bad.

Then as a ghost, Mercutio sings the most beautiful haunting song, and Golda Rosheuvel’s voice on this was one of the very best things I’ve heard in a theatre this year, as was the song. Very good indeed. A five star interjection.

Lightly-clad girls do a pole dancing routine from time to time either side. Why? Bad.

YMCA. Front L to R. Capulet as dinosaur, nurse as Queen Elizabeth, Juliet, Count Paris as knight

YMCA by The Village People was used at the Capulet’s ball, much to the ire of reviewers. It is a gay anthem, extremely catchy and well-loved. OK, but all round the audience, people (some older than us) spontaneously joined in with the Y … M … C … A arm movements, so a joyful moment. Good.

At the ball everyone was in fancy dress that they had to keep for quite a while. Poor Benvolio, already afflicted with the big red gob painted on, had a Pluto dog costume. Capulet Senior had a dinosaur suit. The only one that made much sense was Count Paris in a gold knights in armour costume, which got a laugh on the line ‘This knight …’. There was an un-named chap dancing with a bare chest, who elicited the line “Oh, you’re a saucy one!’ whereupon he bent down with his mouth level with the dinosaur crotch. Fellating a dinosaur? Prancing bare chested to YMCA before doing so? Is that meant to be a positive image for gay people? Sorry, it was Dick Emery in drag. Is this acceptable in a playhouse, which as today, has early teen school parties?  Appallingly bad.

The balcony scene. Romeo mid-pit, Juliet in black slip, hooped tights and Doc Martens up on stage. Here we saw the point of casting an actor as experienced and adept as Kirsty Bushell, because she did a comic gawky teenager. She got that added final vowel that teenage girls have … No-ah! Come-ah! Go-ah! What-ah? Maybe a young actor wouldn’t have had the distance to observe so perceptively. Kirsty Bushell? Very good.

The well-known scene (?) where Lord Capulet grabs Count Paris by the balls.

There’s an awful lot of bollock grabbing and penis miming. Too much. Bad.

Max Richter’s music was used throughout. I thought the violinist was playing above a recording. The recording at the end of the ball scene was the Robbie Robertson mix from Shutter Island soundtrack, where he extracted the vocal of This Bitter Earth by Dinah Washington, and melded it with On The Nature of Daylight by Max Richer. The combination is one of my favourite tracks of the last ten years. Deeply moving found music. Later they play more Max Richter which creates the mood throughout the death scene (partly On The Nature of Daylight). I half think the slow music right before the start might be from Max Richter’s Sleep. Five stars to Max Richter’s music. Using it? Very good indeed.

Friar Lawrence (Harish Patel) and Romeo (Edward Hogg)

Accents. The nurse was Scottish as in the 2015 Globe version. In 2015 it was unintelligible. Here it was clear and precise. Friar Lawrence was Indian, veering to comic Indian, with all the Vs becoming Ws. He appeared with Spanish Inquisition black robed monks, chanting something Indian. Edward Hogg has a precise, but strangely-mannered enunciation (to me at least). Hearing the three changing in quick proximity was dizzying. Bad for me. Not for my companion.

Lady Capulet, after the death of Tybalt, is getting gradually drunk. It works. OK.

Juliet (Kirsty Bushell) and her mum, Lady Capulet (Martina Laird). Fourteen years old? What?

The nurse has to change the bed fast after Romeo & Juliet have been in it to hide the bloodstain on the sheet. Lady Capulet sees it. OK

We move to the ending. The poison becomes a pistol. Romeo, from the pit, buys his dose from the Apothecary, but this is actually Lady Capulet. Why? Then he points the gun and shouts BANG! behind each of the four parents in turn, and they kneel silently for the final scene, in which a pistol, poison and a knife are variously held / mentioned.  Romeo has killed the lot. Confused? You will be. Bad.

The end. People were dabbing their eyes. My companion was dabbing her eyes. I wasn’t. She found the end very moving. All of Act Two had wreathes at the front of the stage, one spelling DAUGHTER, the other SON. I would put the effectiveness down to the scene that Shakespeare wrote, which has it all anyway, but also that Max Richter’s by now soaring music was brilliantly manipulating our feelings. Richter has the same effect on me on the hi-fi system at home with no images. The counter view was that the tragedy of losing children in a senseless way was portrayed, and my companion had Syria in her mind. Good or bad? Good for her, bad for me.

At half-time, we were divided between  Michael Billington’s one star rating and two stars. At the end, I hadn’t shifted. My companion had shifted to a definite three. So it gets two.

Let’s go back to the Globe / Emma Rice question. I think that as last year, Emma Rice’s own directed plays have a twinkle and sparkle that allows them to get away with messing with The Globe’s purpose. In the hands of other directors? I don’t think it works. In the end, the mimed fellatio on the guy in dinosaur costume is her inevitable exit. On that alone, in front of school parties, she deserves to go.

I won’t criticise the actors, who all performed what they were asked to perform with great skill and enthusiasm. The director carries the can entirely.

However, much as I have listed criticisms, I don’t regret going to see it. I was very irritated at times, but I was never bored, nor on a very hot afternoon, sleepy. Some things, like the music and Kirsty Bushnell’s performance were superb.

**

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

I don’t usually puts quote, but the thumbs down is so resounding, I have.

Michael Billington, Guardian, *

The Globe’s perverse show vandalises Shakespeare.This risible production butchers the language, (and) turns Juliet into a squawking pampered princess.

Ann Treneman, The Times *

This noisy, frenetic and musically bizarre production has a singing dinosaur and grinding pole dancers, but not much Shakespeare

Domenic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph **

Daniel Kramer, the willing and reasonably able controversialist who now runs ENO, performs the role of attack-dog, cocking his leg and doing his anti-traditionalist business in the courtyard of this hard-won gift of an Elizabethan replica – now celebrating its 20th anniversary – and daring us to smell a fault. 

Sarah Hemming, Financial Times **

The noise and insistence on playing nearly everything for laughs become tedious, dramatically shallow and emotionally unengaging. If you are amplifying your actors, why have them yell so much of the time? Too often the staging feels strained and overblown. It’s exhausting.

Susannah Clapp, The Stage, **

A bellowing pantomime

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard, **

… raucously silly production for Emma Rice’s last season seems calculated to upset the purists

Paul Taylor, The Independent ***

MUSIC CREDITS

This proves my point that people want music credits in theatre programmes. The Globe blog has people asking what music is used in the ballroom  scene and they answer:

This Bitter Earth by Dinah Washington /On The Nature of Daylight, Max Richter, produced by Robbie Robertson from the Shutter Island soundtrack.

The Blue Notebooks by Max Richter is performed at various moments by a string quartet.

Keep Young and Beautiful (Al Dubin / Harry Warren) from Roman Scandal (1933) gets played in a scratchy recording. Could be by anyone.

PROGRAMME

Weird convoluted synopsis. Way more than was needed, but it still looked as if an essay twice as long was cut by 50%. Way below normal Globe level for synopses.

ROMEO & JULIET ON THIS BLOG:

• Romeo & Juliet, Headlong 2012, Nuffield, Southampton
• Romeo & Juliet 2014 – Box Clever
• Romeo & Juliet 2015 – Globe Touring Production
• Romeo & Juliet – Tobacco Factory, 2015, at Winchester Theatre Royal
• Romeo and Juliet – Branagh Company, 2016
• Romeo & Juliet, Globe 2017
• Romeo & Juliet, RSC 2018
• Romeo & Juliet, TV film, NT 2021

KIRSTY BUSHELL
Hedda Gabler, Salisbury 2016 (Hedda)
The White Devil by John Webster, RSC 2014 (Vittoria)
The Tempest, RSC 2012 (Sebastian)
Twelfth Night, RSC 2012 (Olivia)
Comedy of Errors, RSC 2012 (Adriana)