Romeo and Juliet Written by William Shakespeare, adapted by Tony Allan. Directed and designed by Joe Woodward.
The
Joe Woodward Theatre, Issoudun Performing Arts Centre, Daramalan
College, Canberra. 26 and 30 April and 1, 2, 3 May at 7.00pm and 3 May
at 1.00pm
Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 26
William
Shakespeare almost certainly attended the King Edward VI Grammar School
in Stratford-upon-Avon until he was 14 or 15. This grammar school, just
like Enfield Grammar School which I attended in the 1950s, was a free
school, supported by Queen Elizabeth I, for boys and was located near
his family’s home.
Though I studied his Henry IV and played the
young Prince Hal when I was 13, William may well have read the story of
Romeo and Juliet, about the families and the tragic results of their
parents’ enmity in Verona, which was well-known in Italy for 100 years
before his birth in April 1564.
Possibly based on truth, it was
first published as a short story written by Tommaso Guardati in 1476,
as a novel by Luigi da Porto in the 1530s, in another version by Matteo
Bandello in the 1550s, and then translated into French and English, in
the form of a poem, by Arthur Brooke: The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which William Shakespeare adapted for the theatre when he was aged 30 in 1594.
Now in the Internet Age you can begin more research by going to www.veronissima.com/en/romeo-juliet-true-story.html (and have a look at Enfield Grammar School https://www.enfieldgrammar.org )
I
tell you this to give the modern Australian young people a sense of the
literary and theatre tradition within which Shakespeare wrote his plays
400 years ago (and still in the English tradition of my day, at least,
some 70 years ago.) This is to be in keeping with Drama
Teacher/Director, Joe Woodward’s intention that “DTC’s new theatre
production of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a rare
Hermetic presentation to create a total theatre experience of drama,
music, media, interactive entertainment, food and drink and visual art.”
And indeed all these elements were there, with many in the
audience seated at cafe tables, and a bar in the foyer beforehand, at
interval, and after the show. I did look up the meaning of ‘hermetic’ –
“complete and airtight / or, relating to occult tradition encompassing
alchemy, astrology, and theosophy.”
I’m not sure all of that was
covered, but the design, music, audio-visuals, costumes and
choreography of movement made for an interesting approach, while the
measure of success was very much in the final scenes, where education in
and through drama came to full strength.
This was achieved not
by too much talk and show-off action in the vein of Romeo’s ‘mate’
Mercutio, but in the stillness and silences of the tomb, the recognition
of the tragedy they have caused by the Montague and Capulet fathers,
and a very important last image added in perhaps by Woodward as
teacher/director – or hopefully by the students in a rehearsal workshop.
In
my script, which I guess is the 1623 Folio version (there were 7
versions after William’s first effort), the play ends with no more than a
homily from the Prince of Verona:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
But
in this presentation, in the silence following this speech, Juliet’s
mother – never a pleasant parent before this moment – picks up her now
dead daughter, aware now of the poison and the dagger, and lays her
down, down stage almost amongst the tables of food and drink, and holds
her Juliet there, in tears. As the lights dim to blackout.
William
has, of course, castigated the men throughout the play for their
insistence on their ‘right’ to win at all costs, but Shakespeare still
left those men in charge.
In this largely gender-blind casting,
these modern young Australians have taken up the rights of women in
that one powerful ending moment. This is learning through drama in
action of the best educational kind.
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| Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, Tybalt Act III, Scene 1, Romeo and Juliet Daramalan College, 2025 |
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| Mother, Nurse, Juliet, Capulet Father Act III, Scene 5 Daramalan College, Romeo and Juliet 2025 |
