The Stage

Shakespeare’s R&J

Published Thursday 31 July 2008 at 13:20 by Alistair Smith

I don’t think I quite see the point of Shakespeare’s R&J - Joe Calarco’s re-editing of Romeo and Juliet, which overlaps the classic play with the story of four 1950s public school boys coming to grips with their burgeoning sexualities.

It’s a potentially interesting concept - the boys have broken into the school chapel of an evening and, amid swigging of brandy and other assorted high jinx, begin to act out scenes from Shakespeare’s play.

The setup creates occasional peaks of homoerotic frisson - and violence - between the boys, but rarely conveys much else about the quartet or their respective personalities, for the principle reason that Calarco sticks much too closely to the original text and adds very little to it.

This is a real problem, because the overarching device of having the audience constantly aware it is watching people act out a play prevents any involvement with the dramatic action within Shakespeare’s original.

The end result is that while Calarco’s rejigging of Romeo and Juliet might be an intellectually impressive exercise, dramatically it falls completely flat.

And I don’t think it has anything to do - in this production - with either the cast or the staging. The four boys are all ably played and the atmospheric setting under the vaults near London Bridge fits perfectly with the atmosphere of a Catholic chapel.

Still, throughout the show, I couldn’t help but think I’d rather have been watching Shakespeare’s unedited original.