BWW Reviews: ROMEO AND JULIET, The Unicorn Theatre, February 3 2011

Flowers - blooming in glorious beauty so briefly - fill the stage in the shape of a heart, as the opening monologue prepares us for the tragedy to come. With the arrival of the characters whose hate and vanity will break the lovers' hearts (literally and metaphorically), the flowers are kicked about presaging the violence to be wrought later. Thankfully, apart from the music which added to the dramatic impact but made some actors' voices rather tricky to hear in my most definitely non-teenage ears, the symbolism ends there and the poetry of text and the commitment of the acting gets on with the "two hours traffic of our stage".

Pilot Theatre's production is aimed at teenagers who will identify with two very 21st century lovers. Rachel Spicer's Juliet - smocks, denim shorts and boots - pouting and sulking, barely makes eye-contact with her dressed-for-the-red-carpet Capulet mother, while Oliver Wilson's Romeo turns from lad-about-town to lovelorn poet at the strike of Cupid's arrow. Only Facebook messages confessing undying love every five minutes of the day and night were missing from their modern romance. Around me, the kids in the audience enjoyed Chris Lindon's Robbie Williamsesque Mercutio; and they recognised why Juliet, distant from her parents, was so close to Louisa Eyo's loving and wise Jamaican Nurse. Playing the comedy broad and physical early on, pays off in sharpening the second half's descent into tragedy, driving home one of the play's key themes for many who will be seeing Shakespeare performed for the first time. It does no harm in an age of feelgood movies and a world in which tears can be provoked by a footballer moving clubs, for young people to see how the master dramatist of the English language used the concept of tragedy.

The verdict of my teenage son? "If Romeo had had a mobile, they would have been okay, wouldn't they?" - a thought that may have bemused The Bard, but might please co-directors Marcus Romer and Katie Posner, who set out to connect the Veronese inbetweeners with their present day counterparts. I guess my boy's comment shows that they succeeded.

 

Romeo and Juliet is at the Unicorn Theatre, London until 12 February 2011 and later on tour.