S4K’s Romeo & Juliet was performed at the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon before an international tour.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been adapted in many ways from contemporary movies to classical ballet. It is also, perhaps most famously, the basis for the musical West Side Story, so it would be understandable if this was used as a touchstone for any musical incarnation. Shakespeare 4 Kidz’s production, however, has a very different audience to Bernstein and softens the edges of the story slightly, inserting a string of accessible musical numbers more akin to Disney than 1950s Broadway.
Julian Chenery’s book truncates the story a little and adapts many of the famous exchanges using a mixture of common English and a selection of the most popular quotes from the play. On the whole, it works rather well, although there are moments when the script borders on cliché, with phrases such as “We’ll laugh about this one day” seeming inappropriately off-hand considering the drama of the situation.
While the script may tone down some of the drama, Matt Gimblett’s score isn’t bad at all, ranging from full-blown love ballads to gospel and blues. Lyrics by both Chenery and Gimblett are refreshingly narrative and capture the spirit of love story with romance and humour. The Prologue sets the dramatic tone but soon morphs into the punchy Montagues and Capulets number that swiftly establishes the period, style and story.
To lighten the mood, Susie Chaytow belts out ‘I’m Juliet’s Nurse’ with evident glee and Alistair Frederick’s Mercutio (singing the number ‘Queen Mab’) quickly becomes a highlight of Act I. The famous balcony scene is blessed with the charming ballad ‘Just His Name’, a lyrical duet from Josh Maddison’s lovestruck Romeo and Lucy Telleck’s feisty Juliet.
If the script is treated loosely, then it survives but Chenery’s direction seems misguided at several points. The fight scenes are more comical than dramatic and for this reason the tension is lost. When the deaths occur, they lack impact and unfortunately neither the script nor the score at these points are able to make up for that loss.
Individual performances are well judged, particularly Maddison and Telleck, who have the necessary chemistry to render literature’s most romantic couple believable. Paul Kemble’s Capulet is given the greatest range dramatically and as such his moments with Thomas Hewitt’s Paris and Clare Reilly’s Lady Capulet are some of the best in the production. Harry Hart’s Friar Lawrence is suitably clerical but he obviously has much more fun playing the hilarious, illiterate Peter.
Jill Wilson’s simple setting helps the action along including a Star Wars style prologue that works particularly well. S4K’s production sets out to do exactly as it intended, namely introduce young people to great storytelling and narrative songs. The lack of violence and tension may mar the dramatic impact of the original story but this adaptation still provides the building blocks of sound, musical theatre construction.
Paul Vale
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