The blossoming and naïve innocence of a teenage romance comes to the fore in this stylistically loaded staging of William Shakespeare’s tragedy, which only at times threatens to cave in on itself under the weight of its directorial choices.
In Shakespeare’s version, the prologue clearly sets out that it is a two-hour tale of love and woe, but with this prologue gone, swiped aside by director Robert Icke who rearranges the work to fit this time-bending vision, the piece is nearer to three hours in a slightly bloated trade-off. This is a symptom of Icke’s choice here to replay moments, reframing some of the play’s moments where things could go either way to hammer home the notion of fate. It is a neat idea and a novel concept, but one that wanes a little in consistency and presentation.
That said, where the production shines, regardless of any creative missteps, is through its performers. Sadie Sink, as Juliet, is utterly brilliant, channelling an embittered teenage girl being forced to behave how her domineering parents want her to, while wrestling with the hormonal desires for her first love, Romeo. Icke’s directing places Sink’s Juliet, for the majority of the play, on her bed, an eerie foreshadowing of the tomb where the piece meets its ending, yet despite the limited opportunities to spread the stage, Sink captures and holds the attention well. It is a distinctly modern Juliet, one that will certainly resonate with the younger audiences paying to see the Stranger Things star, but with a sense of nostalgia about a first love that older viewers will recognise too.
Alongside Sink is Noah Jupe, a brooding and handsome Romeo but not overstated in this manner. Often clad in a dark vest and with swept hair, Jupe’s Romeo quickly seizes Juliet’s heart, but what Jupe also draws out is the vulnerability and awkward desire of this teenage Romeo, pining for his Juliet. There is an instant, believable chemistry between the pair as soon as their relationship bursts into life, but both performers do well to also evoke the sense of chaotic wonder that a first love brings, and the intense pain it can also evoke.
Meanwhile, Clare Perkins’s Nurse, styled in a cocky Cockney way that isolates her from Juliet’s suave, lavish, American Capulet family, brings great energy, and a sense of maternal protectiveness for Juliet which is lacking from Juliet’s own mother. Perkins is both funny and furious, but truly shines in the production’s much sharper second half, once Tybalt is slain (spoilers, but you’ve had over 400 years), and Juliet’s seemingly dead body (also spoilers) is discovered.
Creatively, the production is ambitious but also at times a little at odds with itself too. Icke borrows his countdown clock from his terrific Oedipus, gradually moving from Sunday to Thursday, but this relies on the audience knowing that this time frame exists. Meanwhile, the positioning of the balcony scene, and the introduction of poisonous-plant-growing Friar Laurence (John Marquez) right in the very corner downstage, means that much of the audience has to watch these scenes through screens rather than live, which especially in the case of the latter feels a little odd and one wonders why it cannot just be moved a few feet over.
That said, when Icke allows the piece to breathe, such as in Perkins’s fabulous horror and the genuinely powerful finale, reimagined with terrific poignancy and aided by Sink’s delicate poise, this Romeo and Juliet feels much more modern than its age would suggest.
