One can see that if it had turned out that she could have been Romeo’s wife for the rest of their lives, she would have run rings around him. Juliet and Romeo are just right: the highly intelligent, willful, rebellious and very strong girl, newly entered into her teenage life but already quite mature, is captured by Rebekah Murrell. The semi-detached Lady Capulet of Shakespeare’s text wanders around in a daze, hardly ever without a drink in her hand, and swigging from a bottle at the party. The Nurse stands out as a lively, resourceful operator and Mercutio as an effective comedian while displaying a fierce devotion to his friend. The performances are uniformly first-rate. A nice ironic touch is the slogan ‘Good Vibes Only’ on the T shirt Romeo is wearing when he kills Tybalt. Jackie Orton‘s costumes are exactly right for the contemporary scene where everyone wears whatever they like. Herbalist Friar Lawrence has a rolled-in greenhouse full of colourful flowers, which is later converted to Juliet’s tomb. Juliet’s huge round bed, wheeled in and out, is the main feature, playing a major role as so much of the action takes place in her bedroom. Jacob Hughes’ design is suitably minimal for the bare stage. Some of the scenes are accompanied by quiet non-intrusive mood music featuring a trumpet and a trombone. It’s wild and loud and creative with punk rock songs by composer, Max Perryment, mixed with music by such groups as Arctic Monkeys. Why is it necessary to tell us she could be in danger? Ince has twisted it, of course, because no one before her has ever thought that the nurse is in danger in this comic scene where the kids make harmless fun of her. When the Nurse goes looking for Romeo we are told that “it is dangerous for women to go out alone” as we are seeing the Montague gang molesting her. Her messages appear in huge red letters on an electronic notice board above the heads of the actors, diverting attention from the action on the stage. However, to make sure that the audience understands that she would like something done about it she is using the stage in an iconic theatre as her platform. And there’s nothing Ince can do about it. Teenagers haven’t changed in the last four centuries, nor will they change, and perhaps in a hundred years from now, teenagers will still be roaming the streets with knives or some weapon we haven’t yet dreamt of. At the same time, the message is presented in large print above the stage. Young people have nowhere to go.” Then we see young people roaming the streets with knives. ![]() Shakespeare’s text is pressed into a solid frame made of information about Ince’s views on what the ills of society are, which turns the performance into something like a public awareness service.Įach scene begins with a member of the cast informing us of things such as “the number of London youth clubs has halved since 2011. This production, laudable as it is in many respects, is heavy on didacticism. It’s Shakespeare’s lack of any agenda in his playwriting that makes his plays universal. The authorities seem unable to do anything apart from threatening them with the drastic remedy of execution. Parents are indifferent to their children’s cries for help while teenage bodies lie in the streets. In her version of Verona powder-snorting, knife-carrying teenagers have nothing to do so they hang out in the streets in gangs and look for trouble with teenagers from other gangs. Shakespeare’s friend, Ben Jonson, wrote, in the Preface to The First Folio, that Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all time, and indeed, Ince demonstrates that with her 2020s ‘woke’ production. Ola Ince’s production of Romeo and Juliet is very contemporary. ![]() Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order. Plays It is believed that Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total between 15.
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