Theatre Review: Romeo and Juliet
A Wild Goose Theatre Production
25/7/23 Oxford Castle and Prison
Directed by: Paul Alex Nicholls
Written by: William Shakespeare
Review by Noor Zohdy
A Wild Goose Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet was nothing short of spectacular. Starting just an hour before dusk, the production’s opening was full of promise, hope, and childish spirit which brought the contrast of the tragic latter half into sharp relief, in the ghostly darkness of Oxford Castle. In the first half the humour was unbelievably vibrant, and the sense of genuine, comedic youth made the characters at once real and endearing. Romeo (Cyd Cowley) made an unmistakable entrance as a lovesick youth: with a quick, uncertain step, he entered muttering to himself, full of nerves and excitement about his first love Rosalind. He, Mercutio (Simon Billington), and Benvolio (Billy Morton) made the perfect comedic trio, with Romeo often standing ironically to the side. Somehow, the sheer comedy of their scenes together never fully slipped into the utterly nonsensical, there was always a deeply human quality, and it was these friendships that developed Romeo’s strength as a character. Set in 1920s Italy, the themes of money, greed, corruption, and loss underpinned the play. The destructive force of violence amid frivolity, love, and hope came to new poignancy when set alongside the military dress.
One of the greatest strengths of the production was its ability to balance opposites. The girlish Juliet (Rachael Twyford), spinning in her nurse's arms at the beginning, seems transformed amid the shadows of the conclusion; and yet, the subtle details nonetheless betray her youth and heightened the tragedy: her desperate run for the rapier, her shaking hand, her childish sobs. Romeo, too, whilst utterly transformed from his theatrically comic opening scenes, remains chillingly youthful in spirit. This childishness is seen again at the scene of Mercutio’s death, the expression of utter shock on Romeo’s face portraits with vivid pathos a naive child learning of the violence underpinning the world he once saw so differently. His words to Paris (Jordan Bisché), ‘tempt not a desperate man’ gain a new resonance as we see Romeo is hardly a man: the chaotic, clumsy, but chillingly desperate aims of his rapier against Paris in the ending recall the audience to the displacement of childish passion to tragic hopelessness.
With the echoes of the war underpinning the play, the final words of the stoic queen, wearing a jacket coated in medals, of the ‘sacrifice’ of Juliet and Romeo for the final peace of the two families, seems to evoke the killings and tragedy of war, only for the two men of either household to shake hands in the darkness, walking their separate ways leaving only the military queen and the slain in the centre of the stage.
Amid the hope and tumult, Friar Laurence (Craig Finlay) was especially moving. A morally contentious figure of the original play, I found his powerlessness here touching. At the beginning of Act 5 Scene 2, he performed a sung soliloquy with haunting beauty, and it remains in my memory of the play as a central moment of stillness before he is quickly silenced by the coming footsteps that deliver worse and worse tidings.
The heartfelt devotion of Romeo and Juliet to one another was keenly felt, and all other actors, too, conveyed terror, hope, loss, and despair with unbelievably moving grace. I was always somewhat ambivalent as to Romeo and Juliet as a play, but from this production, I gained a newfound appreciation of the play’s testimony to the stunning capacity of human feeling that can know at once the brightest of hopes and the most haunting of tragedies; from the scarlet of dusk at the opening to the darkness of the stars that hung above at its end.
