Romeo & Juliet

Always enjoy a new performance of Romeo and Juliet...A+

This DVD presents a recording of “Romeo and Juliet” production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The performance was recorded in July, 2018. It was directed by Erica Whyman.This is a well done production. The young actors who play Romeo and Juliet are able to present their characters in a compelling way. They both bring freshness to the play and radiate sincerity. A very simple but clever stage design helps to emphasize the strength of the actors’ performance. Most importantly, Erica Whyman does not try to explain the story or to improve it or make-up a new story. She leaves it up to the audience to try to figure out the various “why” and “how” that the play prompts the audience to ask. Even with an artificial gender balance, the intended impact of the play is preserved.Shakespeare always leaves it up to his audiences and readers to work out these various “why” and “how.” In this way he encourages our minds to make an extra effort and to rise above ordinary intellectual and emotional reactions. Why does the lovers’ story end up in such a tragic way? Sure, there were many other possibilities to resolve the situation in a much more agreeable manner. Why did Shakespeare select the tragic one? Falling in love is rather a common experience, but that particular manifestation of “love” as illustrated in “Romeo and Juliet” seems to belong to a very different category. It is immensely greater than what we are familiar with. Why is like this? How is it done? What is it that makes it so different?By having the Trojan heroes Paris and Helena inserted in “Romeo and Juliet,” Shakespeare intentionally draws our attention to another episode of his narrative: “Troilus and Cressida.” An interesting thing is that the RSC presented “Romeo and Juliet” just prior to their production of “Troilus and Cressida” (April and October in 2018, respectively). In both plays there is a couple of lovers who, after spending a first night together, are forcefully separated. These are the similarities. But there are also substantial differences that Shakespeare wants us to notice. The first difference is that “Troilus and Cressida” is set-up in 13th century BC Troy (approx.) and “Romeo and Juliet” in 14th century Verona, i.e., nearly three millennia later. “Troilus and Cressida” is the opening episode of Shakespeare’s narrative. In other words, “Troilus and Cressida” marks the starting point of Shakespeare’s journey through many stages of human consciousness. He uses the various manifestations of “love” as a symbolic measure of the various levels of consciousness. At the time of the Trojan War, “love” is very basic: mechanical, transactional, purely sensual with a tiny touch of emotionality. In the case of “Troilus and Cressida,” this particular manifestation of “love” does not have any effect on neither Trojans nor Greeks. Even the lovers themselves manage relatively easily to overcome their separation. Fourteen episodes later, in 14th century Verona, “love” is manifested in an entirely new manner. It rises into a completely different quality and dimension. Its flame consumes the lovers. But -and this is the main point of “Romeo and Juliet” and the entire Shakespeare’s narrative- it affects the entire city of Verona and changes the city’s modus operandi. (How effective is this change? We may find about it in “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” which describes the next episode of Shakespeare’s narrative.)In Shakespeare’s symbolic illustration, “Verona” represents an intermediary stage in the development of human consciousness. Because of the experiences of Romeo and Juliet, “Verona” is cleansed from its impurities; it is freed from that “ancient (Trojan) grudge. Now “Verona” is made ready for the next stage of the process.Unfortunately, the audiences watching the RSC’s productions of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Troilus and Cressida” were prevented from accessing answers to these various questions. By blindly following the fashion for a “modernization” of Shakespeare, the RSC staged both plays in modern times. This means that the plays are taking place at the same historical times, in the same social and cultural milieus. In this way the historical dimension of Shakespeare’s narrative has been removed; the plays have been flattened out. The intermediary stages of the process (described in other fourteen plays) that led from the stage of “Troy” to the stage of “Verona” were erased. In this context, there remains only one issue that presently truly preoccupies the RSC. This issue is a matter of accounting. Namely, how many male and female characters are accounted for in each of these two productions. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

I had high expectations for this RSC production but they were not close to fulfilled. There was the usual gender-shifting of role typical of many modern productions. That can be done well but here it was not. The subtlety was lost in the direction. Romeo is not listless, suffering from "love melancholy" in his first scenes. His is rushed, loud and full of antics. Mercutio overdoes the Queen Mab speech at high volume. The party at the Capulet house where the lovers' first meet becomes, of course, a loud disco with jarring music. This overpowers the beautiful language of that scene and the key sonnet that Romeo speaks upon first seeing Juliet is mangled. The emotion of their intense first romance is lost. I could go on but you get the point.

blocks public viewing, useless for teaching

The Royal Shakespeare Company provides us with a recent production of this tragedy of two young people caught in a deadly family feud .... You know the story or you would not be reading this sentence; you know the author or you would not be breathing.

Although Erica Whyman's 2018 RSC production of Shakespeare's famous play has attracted favourable reviews, the DVD as displayed on the Amazon website does not sufficiently warn the unsuspecting viewer just how radical this version is. In an attempt to bring the play into the twenty-first century, Whyman introduces several innovations. Modern dress productions are common enough by now, but Whyman's insistence on diversity extends not only to race, no doubt reflecting the racial diversity of modern-day Britain, but gender-fluidity too. The casting of women in some of the traditional male roles relates not only to the bit-parts, but to some of the more significant ones, including the Prince and Mercutio. Various accents familiar to British audiences - Scottish, Cockney, 'Northern', West Indian - are also celebrated, although here a little more subtlety would have been appreciated. Apart from the roles for which maturity is essential (old Montague and Capulet and their wives, the Nurse, and so on), the cast is a very young and energetic one, including a smattering of schoolchildren, which bubbles with enthusiasm. The play sets off at a breathless pace, which is largely sustained (the run-time is a full twenty minutes shorter than the traditional BBC Shakespeare production from the 1970s). The set is stark, simple and, above all, functional, and is focused around a cube which is manipulated to serve the different scenes. The overall impression is that of a West Side Story imported to Stratford, with a gangland aura in which the ubiquitous knife is the weapon of choice, even in defiance of the spoken lines ('Fetch me my rapier, boy'!)Most critics have remarked on the freshness of this production, but it is hardly one for the purist, and I wonder whether even Whyman herself was quite clear in her mind as to her motives, at times. For there is so much going on at so many levels that it is difficult for an audience to know exactly what to look for. What are the themes that are supposed to stand out: the gender-fluidity? the issue of multi-racism and multi-culturalism? the problem of the knife-culture so relevant in Britian today? the problem of child abuse (by Juliet's father)? the dysfunctional family? All these themes are undoubtedly present in the play, but the audience seems to be left to make of them what it will. If there is any bonding of these issues at all, perhaps it is to be found in Juliet's portrayal of what it is like to be an adolescent in contemporary society. In some ways, watching Whyman's production is like being immersed in a dense, richly chromatic piece of music for large orchestra - Delius at his most expansive, say - with its endless textural layers of complexity, in which the ear seems almost bewildered by such an excess of riches. Such layers of complexity may be intended to inform, but they can also obfuscate, especially where no guidance is provided. In the case of the present production, even seasoned critics were divided and sometimes diametrically opposed in their opinions. For instance, one critic felt that the set enhanced the performances of the actors, while another felt it to be an encumbrance. One judged Juliet to be portrayed as a headstrong mistress of her own fortunes, whereas another flatly denied this, regarding her as the victim of circumstances beyond her control, unable to escape the prison that others create for her. Which of these did Whyman intend? Given the low average age of the cast, one must allow for some unevenness in the quality of the performances. The two lead roles, however, are well-played. Karen Fishwick's Juliet convinces as a typical teenage girl who can fly into a hissy fit at the drop of a hat, who glooms and glowers, and then the next moment is giddily in love - or what she takes to be love. Bally Gill, as Romeo, is equally impulsive, living for the moment and going out on the town with the lads. Charlotte Josephine, on the other hand, is somewhat tedious as Mercutio, with her one-volume delivery (very loud), her strained Cockney accent with its yobbish overtones, and her constantly gyrating hips. To be frank, I was relieved when she was killed off!This is not an evenly-paced production. Generally, pace-variation is used by producers to enhance particular scenes in order to alert the audience to significant highlights in the play, but I am not sure whether this quite works as it is meant to here. Some of the transitions have a jarring effect. The one between the end of Capulet's banquet and the famous balcony scene, for instance, is over in a trice. On the other hand, Whyman's transition between the earlier and later parts of the play is impressive. Where wit and innuendo are required, chiefly in the earlier scenes, it is provided in full measure and fully appreciated by the audience (we can hear their reaction, given that this is a live performance), against which the tragic elements later in the drama are revealed with all the greater intensity. There are, indeed, some really striking moments. Capulet's violet reaction to Juliet's refusal to marry Paris is finely judged and crackles with menace.How does this production speak to us? Undoubtedly, it celebrates diversity of all kinds, for good or ill. More incidentally, perhaps, it speaks of modern British consumerism which is driven by the desire to have what we want when we want it, including our choice of sexuality which has come to resemble our selecting items in a supermarket.