Stratford Festival
Through October 19
ROMEO AND JULIET Festival Theatre/Stratford Festival
By Augustine Warner
Stratford's “Romeo and Juliet” has a very different relationship with the audience, nearly eye to eye.
Director Tim Carroll wants the production to be more of a show in Shakespeare's own Globe Theater with the groundlings and seat purchasers spending a London afternoon at the play, with the light coming down from the sky into the open air space.
With the auditorium lights kept on, performers on stage can look out right into the audience, as a cast member can look into the face of an audience member in a way not usually possible in the vast, darkened space of the Festival Theatre.
The story?
Well it's a usual “R&J,” ending with the bloody peace between the Montagues and the Capulets as they look at their dead children.
Director Carroll doesn't delay between scenes, with performers from one scene not off stage before the next starts so the show never slows down.
You do wonder why they don't see each other but this is willful suspension of disbelief.
To summarize: teenager Juliet Capulet (Sara Topham) falls in love with teen Romeo Montague (Daniele Briere) at a Capulet party even as the two families are conducting deadly brawls in the streets of Verona.
The two arrange a secret marriage after spending a night in her bedroom with that vast balcony while her father (Scott Wentworth) is arranging a wedding with Paris (Antoine Yared).
To get around that, with the help of Friar Laurence (Tom McCamus) a complicated plot evolves using sleeping potions which doesn't work well, leaving both Romeo and Juliet dead in the Capulet tomb.
This skips the beautifully-done sword fight which leaves the swaggering Mercutio (Jonathan Goad) and the violent Tybalt (Tyrone Savage) dead.
It's a well-known plot borrowed as Shakespeare so often did from earlier writers.
What's different about this tragedy is that it speaks to each generation, especially to teens who are often going through first love or early loves.
How many of Shakespeare's play have that direct connection to those in the seats?
This is a fairly strong production, although Romeo sword-fights well but doesn't love all that well.
Topham's Juliet is very strong as are the duplicitous, maternal Nurse (Kate Hennig), Goad's doomed sociopath Mercutio, Wentworth's Capulet and McCamus' plotting Friar Laurence.
There is also the usual strong assortment of spear carriers and an effective and minimalist set from Douglas Paraschuk.
This “Romeo and Juliet” is different but worth seeing because the story holds up so well.
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