Touching performances: Adam Gillian, Ray Sesay and Emma Dougan in Romeo and Juliet. Photo by Carrie Davenport
Striking: Rosie McClelland as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. Photo by Carrie Davenport
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Touching performances: Adam Gillian, Ray Sesay and Emma Dougan in Romeo and Juliet. Photo by Carrie Davenport
Katy Hayes
Director Philip Crawford is determined not to let his production of Shakespeare’s great play about individual tragic outcomes in a tribally divided society get bogged down in parallels with sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Crawford’s focus is on the tragedy of young adult suicide, perhaps more relevant to audiences in 2023. Anne Bailie has tightly edited the script, focusing more directly on the young couple; the gang warfare slips into the background.
The setting is modern day Verona, the Capulets and Montagues are rival fashion houses. Romeo and Juliet meet at a launch party for the Capulet autumn-winter collection; it is love at first sight, and with the aid of Juliet’s nurse and a helpful priest, they get married behind their parents’ backs.
Romeo is banished from Verona following a street fight where he kills Juliet’s cousin. A series of misunderstandings and missed messages leads to a tragic suicidal ending. Shakespeare was never afraid to litter the stage with corpses.
Striking: Rosie McClelland as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. Photo by Carrie Davenport
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Striking: Rosie McClelland as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. Photo by Carrie Davenport
Touching performances from Emma Dougan as Juliet and Adam Gillian as Romeo light up the centre of the story. Laura Hughes does a lovely job with the fussy nurse. Rosie McClelland is striking as Juliet’s mother, here given a spikier tone than usual by taking on the disciplinarian lines of Juliet’s father. Robin Peoples’ set design uses bold Italianate colonnades and motifs to create a clean-cut arena for fights and parties. The balcony is centrally placed, the bed emerges neatly from the wall, the outside of the church rotates elegantly to create an interior tomb. Costume Designer Gillian Lennox keeps it sleek — these moneyed people are unostentatious; there are some wonderfully stylish, shapely shoes.
I know critics are supposed to be in one mind, but I was in two minds about this production. I missed the focus on the bitter gang rivalry. The tragic outcome here feels more like bad luck due to poor messaging strategies rather than the inevitable result of a tribalist society. The theatre artists of Northern Ireland may wish to move on from done-to-death sectarianism and this is fair enough. The anti-suicide message is well served. But as Romeo and Juliet’s tragedy gains extra poignancy, the play loses sociological bite.
