Juliet and her Romeo at the Bristol Old Vic (From Gazette Series)

Juliet and her Romeo at the Bristol Old Vic

4:22pm Wednesday 17th March 2010 in

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Review by Emily Thwaite Juliet and her Romeo at Bristol Old Vic

SHAKESPEARE’S play about young love is given a twist here, by Bristol Old Vic’s new artistic director Tom Morris and co-adaptor Sean O’Connor – Romeo and Juliet are in their eighties and fall in love in the Verona Care Home.

Contemporary themes about how we treat our old people are present: ranging from touches such as patronising balloons and party songs dispensed by a cheery vicar to more serious issues of drugs accessibility, private healthcare privileges (the Capulets have their own rooms) and pre-occupations about family inheritance.

Juliet’s daughter does not want her impetuous mother to fulfil her promise – ‘all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay’ – to Romeo from the mixed Montague ward. (Perhaps the preferred suitor Paris has his own fortune, to help pay care costs….) As well as this context updating, the text itself is given new emphasis, changing very few words. Juliet’s line in the balcony scene, ‘I have forgot why I did call thee back’ takes on extra, wryly comic, significance. And the rejuvenated Juliet, waiting for news of Romeo from the nurse, poignantly sets herself apart from ‘old folks… unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead’.

Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech, about ‘vain fantasy’ of ‘an idle brain’, and Juliet’s rantings, after Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment, have resonances of senility here.

But these modernisations are not the essence of this production.

New love in old age is held up as simply another manifestation of love – the strength of this show, when it gets into its stride, is Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (by any other name..).

As the play observes, ‘Passion lends them power’ – anyone can fall in love, and is empowered by the strength of the emotion. Siân Phillips was certainly powerful in the role of Juliet; and Romeo’s ‘I ne’er saw true beauty till this night’ rang beautifully true. Michael Byrne, as Romeo, seemed a little weak at times, and his voice was often too quiet. This wasn’t helped by the erratic volume of the recorded music. The use of appropriate incidental songs was good; but music was distracting and unnecessary during the action.

This is a production well worth seeing; and it was great to see Bristol Old Vic lively and full again, with a wide range of ages in the audience.

Tom Morris can be pleased that, as he hopes in his programme introduction, we get a hint of the feeling of falling in love here.