Romeo and Juliet

Published Monday 28 April 2008 at 10:15 by Gerald Berkowitz

The strengths of Antic Disposition’s production lie in an unobtrusive modern dress that gives it a reality, natural underplaying appropriate to the small theatre that gives it an intimacy, a skilfully trimmed text that brings the running time close to the prescribed two hours’ traffic, and at least one very strong central performance.

Though textual cuts and the naturalistic style reduce some of the play’s poetic power, Ami Sayers’ Juliet is a thoroughly believable and endearing portrait of a young teenager, complete with fidgets and sudden mood shifts, and with the rare ability to make every line sound as if it is being thought of and spoken for the first time. Andrew Hayden-Smith is somewhat more stolid and prone to recite rather than speak as Romeo. His most natural moments come not with Juliet, but with Scott Christie’s forceful Friar.

Despite having some of her best comic moments cut, Susan Penhaligon captures the Nurse’s simple peasant humour, and Philip Correia’s theatrical Mercutio and Andrew Venning’s laddish Benvolio also register.

This fast-moving production may not be as poetically evocative as some, but it is always clear and, at its best, as real and moving as if it had never been seen or read before.