Rocking Romeo captures hearts at The Grove
Romeo and Juliet thrills youngsters.
I remember school trips as being endless visits to the Commonwealth Institute in London to study the life cycle of a cocoa bean. If we were really fortunate we'd get a visit to the Planetarium thrown in for good measure.
Pupils in Beds, Bucks and Herts, were treated to a visit to Dunstable's Grove Theatre on Wednesday to enjoy one of history's greatest, and most tragic, love stories played out by a professional cast who were very good indeed.
Perhaps, though, enjoy is the wrong word. One young girl I encountered afterwards was sobbing her heart out at the outcome of Romeo and Juliet. It didn't matter how many times her mother told her it was a wonderful story with a powerful message she was upset by the finale.
So is R & J suitable for children? Should it come with a minimum age restriction and be performed after the watershed? It's a tale that rates a huge body count making more brutal and bloody than your average episode of Midsomer Murders.
There's a ferocious knife fight that results in the deaths of two young men, and four more characters bite the dust by murder and suicide.
Some of the young audience looked stunned by the brutality of it all.
What's more the parish priest is an alcoholic who almost uttered a swear word. Almost. It was cleverly side-stepped but most of the audience thought they'd heard the real thing.
But this was Shakespeare 4 Kidz and the company responsible for the production is expert at pitching the Bard's tales at their key audience.
This time around they've borrowed heavily from the success of Disney's High School Musical and came up with a love story everyone could relate to.
Romeo and Juliet The Musical did what it said on the programme. It opened with an homage to the opening graphics from Star Wars, a synopsis setting out the plot disappearing into outer space.
Then the play proper began with the hot-headed Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, bursting into a raunchy song.
There were no doublet and hose in this performance. Tommi Baxter-Hill's Tybalt looked like brooding anti-hero, Danny Zuko, from Grease in a black leather jacket, white t-shirt and jeans.
The story is now as old as the hills and has been re-invented endlessly. Set in the Italian city of Verona it centres around the forbidden love of two teenagers, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet.
What should be a straight-forward match is complicated by the bitter hostility between the two great families.
The Montagues were dressed throughout in bright colours, our young hero (Neal Andrews) sporting a red Hawaiian shirt and Converse sneakers throughout, while the Capulets wore costumes of black and white.
Visually we all knew who was who – or at least we thought we did.
The audience's only confusion came in the second half. You can't explain to children that theatre companies often have to use their casts in a variety of roles as they can't afford to employ one actor per character.
Come Act Two and Baxter-Hill, Michael Anders and Noel Andrew Harron who'd previously appeared as Tybalt, and Romeo's friends, Benvolio and Mercutio, reappeared in a change of costume and part.
As Juliet (a feisty Jenny Perry) lay supposedly dead from poison there was a buzz through the audience as they'd spotted the men. Baxter-Hill appeared to snigger at this very solemn moment in the script and exchanged words with Harron while the auditorium lost all concentration.
Despite this it was a first class production. The script, crafted by Julian Chenery and Matt Gimblett, with the aid of Shakespeare's original words, ensured the story was easy for the youngsters to follow and contained the right mix of plain English and Shakespearian verse.
The music was lively and kept everyone on their toes and the actors received rousing applause.
The performances were hugely enjoyable, the right mix of comedy and high drama. Noel Harron, bald head and make-up, made an impression as the wise-cracking Mercutio, his death scene incredibly poignant, while Debbie Leigh Simmons, as Juliet's nurse, stole the spotlight with her powerful singing voice and personality.
The girls in the audience clearly preferred the handsome and swarthy Baxter-Hill to Andrews' loved-up Romeo (hey, we all fall for the bad boys!)and there were more than a few comments about the young lovers' kissing scenes.
It's a shame more local schools hadn't attended the two performances because as a teaching tool there could have been none better at making
The Bard accessible and understandable to children.
If only learning Shakespeare had been so enjoyable and in my day.
*For more information about the theatre company and its productions
visit their website www.shakespeare4kidz.com
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Friday 25 May 2012
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