Romeo & Juliet

I walk out of the Globe theatre at 10.30pm and I’m torn. I have just had a thoroughly enjoyable evening watching Romeo and Juliet and feel for the first time this year that summer really has arrived. Unfortunately, I’m not sure this is what I should be feeling. For the most part this is an excellent production – the characters are brought to life, Shakespeare’s text is made wonderfully accessible to the young audience and several of the scenes are backed by some stunningly atmospheric live music. Unfortunately, it trips over the one thing Romeo and Juliet cannot afford to: love.From the very start of the evening, when a group of musicians and actors make the way onto the stage and form an immediate bond with the audience with light song and amusing dance, you get the feeling that Dominic Dromgoole’s production has hit the right key. In fact, Dromgoole has seemingly gone out of his way to make this production appeal to as broad an audience as possible, and for the most part it works. There are several wonderful touches and the decision to play the innuendo to the full is inspired; Michael O’Hagan’s Mercutio leaves us in titters, while Fergal McElherron as Capulet’s servant, Peter, turns a small and seemingly unimportant part into a memorable one. While the conflict between the two houses of Capulet and Montague is a little understated at times, there are several moments of great tension and emotion created in scenes between the two. Mercutio’s death by Tybalt is beautifully underplayed and the sudden panic and bell ringing which accompanies Tybalt’s death is made all the more powerful for the stillness which precedes it. What is perhaps the most intriguing and daring thing about this production though is the casting of the two leads.Ellie Kendrick makes her stage debut as Juliet after a critically acclaimed performance of Anne Frank for the BBC at Christmas, and at 19 is perhaps as close to Juliet’s real age (13) as you are likely to see on a professional stage. Adetomiwa Edun also plays Romeo as a young, carefree teenager who the audience universally fall in love with in the first half of the play. While Kendrick captures the childish innocence and excitement of Juliet, there is never a feeling that the two actually fall in love – the lack of true meaning when they first meet each other’s eye during Capulet’s party is a sign of things to come as Edun takes Juliet’s apparent death as a mere passing disappointment, with his Juliet also failing to touch our hearts on discovery of his passing away. What should be a hugely moving and tragic scene seems to just fade into regrettable insignificance.It would be unfair to judge the whole production based on this fault; there are so many impressive aspects to it and there are few better or more atmospheric places to watch Shakespeare than at the globe. However, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy which ought to hit us like an arrow in the hearts. Somewhat tragically, this just doesn’t.