Romeo & Juliet
Directed by Max Bromley
The Lace Market Theatre is always a pleasure to visit, as they embark on ambitious programmes tackling everything from Mike Leigh to Ibsen to Shakespeare, and it is Shakespeare that forms their February offering.
Romeo and Juliet, says the prologue, is “the two hours traffic” of the stage. This was not true in the 1590s and it’s not true here, with the first act alone coming in at a hefty 90 minutes. However, director Max Bromley makes sure that each of those 90 minutes (plus the 50 minutes of Act 2) is considered, well-presented and full.
From the opening brawl on a hot Verona evening, to a sumptuous masked ball, to the brutal deaths of Mercutio then Tybalt, this version of the play ensures that it retains fidelity to Shakespeare’s text, alongside relevance and action for the 21st century audience.
Played in an angled black box, the set works extremely well. There are levels, with a black tower forming a watch post, a platform for the Prince and of course Juliet’s balcony, and the set is divided on the diagonal by a set of scaffold tubes which allow a gauze curtain to be pulled across at various intervals. Presenting both a barrier and an alternative location, dependent upon lighting, the curtain elevates the set and helps to provide an interesting space for the cast to work, as well as contributing to the creation of different atmospheres for different scenes.
The lighting is effective, enhancing both mood and clever illumination, and the music choices successful, although some of the sound effects were superfluous -the textual interpretation is strong enough that the piece doesn’t need all of these additions.
The cast is strong – our first encounter with David Field’s Romeo sees him leaning against the back wall, dramatically sobbing over his unrequited love for the fair Rosalind; a serious and vigorous performance by Field, whose interpretation has Romeo brooding and brimming with intensity. There are notable performances by Jake Turner, particularly in the role of Mercutio (The Queen Mab speech, a highlight); Guy Evans as Capulet, striding around the stage and managing to find a balance between fierce rage and quiet venom, ensuring the scene where he all disavows Juliet, lands in a chilling and horrifying way. Emma Rayner’s Lady Capulet hits the right beats, Alex Douglas is a sinister Tybalt and Laurie Owen a faithful and anguished Benvolio. But it is Juliet who leads this cast, with an outstanding performance by Daisy Donoghue. I have long believed that this is Juliet’s play, and Romeo just happens to be in it – and here, Donoghue demonstrates with textual dexterity, innocence and pain, all that it means to be Juliet. The ending of this play is frustrating because it is all so easily preventable, but Donoghue’s performance, particularly when her Nurse (Malcolm Todd) advises her to forget Romeo and marry Paris (Laurie Sherratt), is utterly believable as she has no one left to fight her corner. In this interpretation and in that moment, it is clear that Juliet has nowhere else to turn, and that makes her choice to “undertake a thing like death” borne from frustration, so crystal clear.
Todd’s performance as the Nurse also deserves a mention. Casting a man to play the Nurse has risk attached to it, as there is potential for it to spill into becoming a pantomime dame, and this character is one that we need to believe in, so that the moment where she lets Juliet down is pivotal. Fortunately, Todd plays this role with sincerity and ease, ensuring that the relationship is believable.
In terms of the text, the cast largely nail it, and this first night performance displayed no signs of nerves or dropping of the script. There are sections where I felt the text could have been edited – Shakespeare included stage and set directions in his dialogue, to allow his casts to explain what was happening to the Early Modern Audience – it is not always necessary to include lines such as “here lies the County Paris slain” and “look how our daughter bleeds” when we’ve not only seen the deaths, but also already had them narrated by the watchmen, but cutting the part of Balthasar to have Benvolio present at the tomb was a nice touch. There are also moments where I felt the cast hadn’t quite got to grips with the performance of the iambic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays, and is full of rhyming couplets – it is easy to fall into the habit of performing these and giving in to the rhythm, so that it has almost a nursery rhyme effect, and this came through at times during the performance. However, these are minor points in an otherwise extremely faithful, well executed, well-directed passionate performance of this “tale of woe.” It is very easy to forget that this is an amateur theatre, and they continue to bring their “A-Game” to the Nottingham city arts scene. The Lace Market Theatre should be really proud of a job very well done
