Theatre
All lit up
Kenneth Hurren
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (Stratford-upon-Avon) Having taken some exception to a recent Stratford version of Romeo and Juliet set incomprehensibly in a shipyard, and being generally hostile to all eccentric 're-interpretations' of the canon at this particular venue, I should be, perhaps, among the cheer-leaders for the new production of the Play which opened the Stratford season last Week. The wondrous mechanical stage that so awed us when it was installed (especially by its cost, which was said to be a quarter of a million) has lost favour now to the Elizabethan wooden '0', with timbered galleries running round the acting area to accommodate some three score and ten Underprivileged customers who can rarely see a face to put to a voice; and the production is designed to match, observing the Peripheral conventions of the traditional Elizabethan playhouse. The trouble is that traditionalism of this sPurious order is itself an ostentatious gimMick, like that of a tradesman who makes deliveries by horse-drawn carriage when the motor-van is demonstrably more efficient. Nor can the show reasonably go the Whole hog and revert to Elizabethan acting styles (and Elizabethan all-male casting), for such touches demand also the reactions of an Elizabethan audience and the dead Fannot be raised. Why, then, the rest of it, Including the simulation of a daylight performance with the aid of 100 unblinking arc lights? Romeo, turning a couple of handsPrings below the balcony and landing in a neaP in a remote corner (for this is the general manner of Ian McKellen's perfornlance, all sprint., gymnastics and low hurdles, disguising the maturity of the s, tar-crossed youth within what might easily n,e taken as a training session for the necathlon), this Romeo might well look astonished to find himself asking, 'But, 8.Cift! what light from yonder window _breaks?' when no light at all could vary the flooding illumination in which all is bathed. rhe production, in foolish suspension be
tween the ancient method (except for chorus, in blue denim) and the impatient expectations of its modern audience, would fall between two stools, if there were two stools: but the furnishings run only to Juliet's bed, a portable bench and one stool, the property of old Friar Laurence, who carries it with him everywhere like a shooting-stick.
My dismay at the performance is not otherwise much: not, that is, so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but enough. Bowing before the prevailing winds of the time, I reluctantly forgive the enthusiastic sexual emphases, since no director of fashion can do without them (they are his stimulating 'fix') and even without the codpieces capacious enough to hold a hand of bananas, with which the designer has flatteringly equipped the actors, there are sportive opportunities enough in the lines (`My naked weapon is out' and so on) to beguile a convention of pornographers. I find it harder to forgive the pitiless protraction of the piece: the 'two hours traffic' is estimated in the printed programme to be two hours and forty minutes, and, in the event, with one interval, proves to be three hours and forty minutes, and exceedingly tiresome indeed are some of the devices' that account for the increment.
As to the acting, the best performance, by general consent, is John Woodvine's as Capulet. It is hardly agreeable to watch, but the insane rages he brings to the part give conviction to the absurd feud and he is consistent all the way: the kick he aims at the corpse of Romeo might have looked a touch excessive if he had not earlier been seen throwing Juliet about like some unfortunate lady in an adagio act. I feel that Paul Shelley has the right mettle, cynicism and panache for Mercutio; however, he is playing Tybalt. The Mercutio, lack-lustred, is Michael Pennington, whose performance ensures, at least, that the play does not seem, as it so often does, to dwindle into anti-climax after this character's death. His death, indeed, is botched. If Romeo came between the duellists ('Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm'), I missed the move and am inclined to doubt its possibility, since Mercutio, at that vital moment, had leapt into Tybalt's arms and was cuddling him closely.
McKellen's strenuously energetic Romeo loses vital words rather more noticeably than vital years, though he is not, of course, the first actor to play Romeo several seasons after playing Hamlet. Francesca Annis, though, may well be the first actress to play Juliet after playing Lady Macbeth. She speaks sweetly, but though I am famously gallant in these matters, 1 cannot bring myself to say that she has that aspect of dewy, untouched innocence which is the essence of the poignancy that can be mined from the poor child's adolescent passion. It is a disappointing start to the season by the Avon, but I incautiously permit myself higher hopes of this week's Much Ado About Nothing.
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