RCS's Romeo and Juliet by Rosamund Fraser

Directing Romeo and Juliet must be quite the conundrum. We’ve watched the Star-Crossed Lovers played out as Claire Danes and Leonardo Di Caprio, maybe read the play for study or watched adapted versions of it in films like West Side Story. How then does one inject a sense of the new and unique into the well-trodden path that is these two lovers’ downfall? RSC director Rupert Goold may have found the answer in his new Autumn production of Romeo and Juliet. By balancing hints of contemporary life with the Shakespearean, Goold ensures the familiar story speaks with a fresh voice. Take the costuming for example; against a backdrop of Elizabethan couture, the eponymous hero and heroine strut about in Doc Martins and Converses, offering not just visual interest but a reminder that there’s nothing medieval about falling in love. Likewise, the plays humour had a distinctly modern feel. A ten minute mime scene in which Mercutio pretends to crawl headlong into a woman’s vagina could have been plucked straight out of The Inbetweeners, or some such comedy. That’s not to say that there was any element of ‘dumbing down’; as you would expect from an RSC production, the acting was of the highest calibre. Juliet’s nurse in particular stood out as exceptional. Her motherly boisterousness exposed Juliet’s vulnerability, and in their scenes together we saw a Juliet who was less assured and more fragile. Jokes about vaginas aside, maybe it’s the powerful image of a confident young girl becoming lost that was the most accessible aspect to Goold’s production.