As You Like It

I reviewed Bell Shakespeare's As You Like It over at Australian Stage. You can check out what I thought here.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet (Impulse Theatre) runs at the King St Theatre from July 29 – August 24. By William Shakespeare, directed by Stephen Wallace.

There’s a certain cadence that actors take with Shakespeare when they don’t quite understand what they’re saying. It goes like this: fast-fast-super-fast-slow-BUT-LOUD-BECAUSE-THIS-BIT-IS-IMPORTANT-speedy-speedy-laugh-fast-slow-loud-pause-LOUD. Often it is accompanied by a pelvic thrust or some other crude joke, because the memo has been got that Shakespeare has dirty bits.

I would like to be clear that a) this doesn’t happen all the time in Impulse Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet, although it certainly does occur a lot of the time, and b) it’s not necessarily the actors’ fault when it does happen. Iambic pentameter has a rhythm that will catch you, and that cadence I outlined above is the way it seems to trap modern readers. Where the problem lies in this production is in the direction. There are a lot of issues in this show, and I think this is where most of them stem from.

This production is set during the 2005 Cronulla riots. (It should be noted that this is not the first production of Romeo and Juliet to use this setting – Bell Shakespeare did it in 2006. Similarly, it was not that good.) The Capulets are Muslim Lebanese, while the Montagues are white Australian, several wearing racist shirts (“no Lebs”) and/or Australian flags. Against this racially and religiously charged backdrop, Romeo and Juliet fall in love.

There are the ingredients for a good show in this production. The context gives a very clear motivation for the animosity between the Montagues and the Capulets, although the production doesn’t really do more than pay it lip service. It is certainly difficult to explicate a show’s setting without actually changing the text, but here? It very much felt like there were costumes and not much else. It didn’t feel like the implications of the setting were adequately thought through. This extended from some overarching problems, to more basic logical ones – for example, given that her identity was clearly telegraphed by her costume, how did Romeo not realise Juliet was a Capulet until she told him? why did Juliet’s parents send her to the friar to be shrived, considering that is a deeply Christian ritual? The way the script was interpreted might have made sense on the surface, but as soon as you began to penetrate a little deeper, problems appear. It needed a much stronger dramaturgical hand.

Similarly, the show needed a much tighter cut. There were long scenes where I found myself completely bored. Shakespeare’s script includes scenes specifically written for an audience with a limited view of the stage, who needed to be told what was going on because they could not see it. These should be the first scenes to be cut in a modern interpretation, and probably not the last. At more than two and a half hours long, this production drags. It needs to be at least half an hour shorter if it is to really pack a punch and engage audiences. Again, this is a problem with direction: a clearer vision would have made for a better cut, as well as more effective interpretation.

There are clearly some talented actors in Romeo and Juliet, even if this production does not show their talents to their fullest effect. As Romeo and Juliet, Dan Webber and Rainee Lyleson did not have especially good chemistry, but worked well individually. I especially enjoyed Lyleson’s interpretation of Juliet, which highlighted her youth and impetuosity. It was a good performance, and with tighter direction, it could have been a great one: a problem which extends to the entire show.

The other issue I want to mention is the lighting. I don’t normally really notice the technical aspects of shows unless they are either a) spectacular, or b) distractingly bad. Sadly, this show fell into the latter category. The lights changing every three lines, as well as the constant reversion to blackout between scenes, was distracting and unnecessary. A little restraint would have gone a long way here.

This is a principle that could have applied to the whole show. Romeo and Juliet felt like the lights: constantly shifting, unfocused, and changing for no apparent reason at all. I felt like it was a show that did not have a grasp on itself. It didn’t understand what it was saying. The elements for a good show were there, but it needed a much clearer vision, and a much firmer hand. It’s not the worst production of Romeo and Juliet I’ve seen this year (that honour belongs to this show), but this is not really a compliment. Shakespeare should not drag like this, nor should it seem this ill-thought out. With some stronger dramaturgy and direction, this might have been excellent, but sadly, it falls far short of this mark.

The School For Wives

Over at Australian Stage, I reviewed Bell Shakespeare's The School for Wives. This one is big fun and is touring to Sydney as of next week - make sure you go see it! Here's what I thought.

The Duchess of Malfi

I reviewed Bell Shakespeare's The Duchess of Malfi for Australian Stage - you can read my review here. It is an absolute must-see - if you are in Sydney before August 5, get yourself to the Opera House. No excuses.

Julius Caesar

I reviewed Bell Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for Australian Stage - you can read the review here.

Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing runs until 25 June. It plays at the Canberra Theatre Centre until 4 June and at the Melbourne Arts Centre until 25 June 2011. By William Shakespeare, directed by John Bell.
I sometimes think I have a bit of a split personality, particularly when I watch theatre. Perhaps it is the curse of the academic - I go through life seeing things on one hand as normal Jodi, and on the other hand as Jodi the Scholar, for whom everything is potential thesis material. Watching Much Ado About Nothing made me hyper-aware of this dual nature of my personality. Luckily, both Jodis really enjoyed it.

Jodi the Scholar is a PhD student who's writing a thesis on virginity and who has a particularly love of Renaissance literature, and so Much Ado is ripe with material. Although the play is obviously about Benedick (played wonderfully in this production by Toby Schmitz) and Beatrice (the excellent Blazey Best), they're not the drivers of the plot. In fact, if all you saw was the first half before interval (to the end of Act III, Scene II, ending deliciously on the word 'sequel'), you'd assume there wasn't much of a plot. Basically, there's this dude called Benedick and this chick called Beatrice, and they make out that they don't like each other but they obviously are head over heels for each other and totes have a history, and so their friends put together a plan to hook them up.

But then in the second half it all gets a bit dark.

Benedick's mate Claudio and Beatrice's cousin Hero are engaged – Claudio saw her, thought she was a bit of all right, and she (and, moreover, her father) was down with it - and it all seems hunky dory. But then Claudio, through a convoluted series of events involving what is played in this production as the mafia, gets it into his head that Hero isn't a virgin, and the plot really kicks off. And instead of taking her aside and going, 'hey, Hero, so I heard this crazy rumour, how about we have a discussion here,' Claudio decides to humiliate her at the altar. Because a woman who's deflowered is a woman who's worthless.

I have written a lot about the commodification of virginity in Renaissance literature - I'm presenting a paper on it in Canada next week - and we have a perfect example of it here. Jodi the Scholar, watching this, was all, I should put more Much Ado in my conference paper. Claudio finds a deflowered Hero not only worthless, but loathsome. And Hero's father Leonato isn't far behind - he screams at his daughter not to open her eyes when he thinks that she's been deflowered. The only one who immediately comes to Hero's defence is Beatrice, who manages to convince Benedick that she's right.

This obviously sits uneasily with the modern audience - both the nature of Claudio and Hero's engagement and the fetishisation of Hero's virginity. John Bell has dealt with this unease in a subtle way, I think... there is something very petty and a bit poisonous about the bromance between Don Pedro and Claudio, and when Leonato tells them that they have essentially killed his daughter, they are sorry, but yet somehow nonchalant about the whole thing. Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick are a group of three friends who like to joke around together, bros, a sort of Shakespearean Ted/Marshall/Barney How I Met Your Mother trio, and the Bell production really emphasises this, but the Hero incident really does reveal their true colours - Benedick cares enough to stay behind and see that Hero is all right, and then (after coercion from Beatrice) cares enough to challenge Claudio to a duel. And then at the second wedding, when Claudio is to marry the veiled girl (who really is Hero, but which he doesn't know yet), Bell has kept in an often cut line - Claudio says he will marry her even if she is an Ethiop. There was an awkward silence all around the theatre when he said this as everyone realised he really is an enormous douchelord.

However, Much Ado really is a romcom. The plot may focus on Claudio and Hero, whose eventual union leaves the modern audience with an immense sense of unease, but we all know that Benedick and Beatrice, the real focus, will be much happier... even though they'll fight like cats and dogs. There's a concept I remember reading about in my life as Jodi the Scholar called the erotics of talk which I think plays into the difference between the two relationships - Hero/Claudio is based on Claudio thinking Hero is hot. Beatrice and Benedick is based on wit and dialogue - an erotic connection through conversation. And all audiences - Renaissance and modern - are led to believe this is the superior one.

Right. Jodi the Scholar is going to stop wanking on and on about random academic concepts and start talking about the actual show now. Normal Jodi is in the house. And she loved it.

The show stealer was clearly Toby Schmitz's hair - that fifties coiffe he affects at one stage is HILARIOUS - but Schmitz himself was outstanding. At first, his very Australian accent was a little jarring, but after a few lines it seemed perfectly natural. This was an example of excellent, EXCELLENT casting - Schmitz wore this role like a glove. He embraced the awkwardness and the embarrassment and the reluctance to admit change that is at the core of Benedick, and it was awesome. He's not afraid of silence on stage, and some of his funniest moments were silent - or at the least non-verbal, where he made incoherent noises of protest. And the scene where he's under the pool table listening to Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato talk... priceless.

I really cannot speak highly enough of Schmitz's performance in this role. The only criticism I have is that he did overshadow a lot of the other characters - even Beatrice. Blazey Best was an excellent Beatrice, but with material which is not quite as awesome as Benedick's and such a great performance opposite her, I think it was a little hard for her to live up to. All this said, she really was good. She and Schmitz were a bit adorable together. Okay, a lot.

Bell held off on having Benedick and Beatrice kiss right until the very end and I think that was a great directorial choice. The awkwardness between them when they've admitted that they love each other but they're not quite together yet was just perfect. A lot of versions have Benedick and Beatrice being a little too couple-y too early, and this one didn't fall into that trap. The moment at the end when they read the (saucy) sonnets that each has written about the other was just fantastic theatre.

Jodi the Scholar and normal Jodi both loved this production. I highly, highly recommend it. And seriously - check Toby Schmitz's hair. There's a double meaning in it. Somewhere.