Dr Peter Kirwan

Tag: Romeo and Juliet

  • The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] (Again) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] (Again) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    Every now and again, I’ve been lucky to see a revival of an existing play that makes that play feel freshly written, as if designed for that company and that moment. The reworking of Death of a Salesman for an African American family; Theatre Wallay’s reworking of The Taming of the Shrew as a commentary…

  • Rosaline (film)

    Rosaline (film)

    Towards the end of Rosaline, the titular hero (Kaitlyn Dever) asks her new boyfriend Dario (Sean Teale) if, when this story is told centuries from now, whether their names will be even mentioned. ‘Honestly, I couldn’t care less’ replies Dario. It’s indicative of some of the tonal and thematic confusion of Rosaline that it’s the…

  • Romeo and Julie (National Theatre) @ The Dorfman Theatre

    Romeo and Julie (National Theatre) @ The Dorfman Theatre

    While almost any new play or film featuring two lovers kept apart by external forces risks being associated with Romeo and Juliet, it’s rare that one signals the connection in its title as boldly as Gary Owen’s Romeo and Julie. What’s more surprising is that the connections between Shakespeare and this play are so loose that the…

  • & Juliet @ Shaftesbury Theatre

    & Juliet @ Shaftesbury Theatre

    As jukebox musicals go, & Juliet should have had an easy audience in me. Not only does Max Martin’s over-punctuated back catalogue speak pretty precisely to my teenage years (albeit I’ll be whooping for ‘. . . Baby One More Time’ and ‘Oops! . . . I Did it Again’ rather than ‘Roar’), but ‘Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)’ was the…

  • Romeo and Juliet (ASC) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    Romeo and Juliet (ASC) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    This review is of a preview production, and may not reflect the production as of press night. In January 2022, Brandon Carter became the third artistic director of the American Shakespeare Center, and the first to be a core part of the acting company. As such, while he has already carried several major roles (including a celebrated…

  • Romeo and Juliet (The Handlebards) @ Derby Theatre

    Romeo and Juliet (The Handlebards) @ Derby Theatre

    It’s unusual to see a production of Romeo and Juliet in which Friar John emerges as the MVP. But for The Handlebards, this failed postman has rich potential. At the cell of Friar Laurence (Tom Dixon), Friar John (initially Lucy Green, later Paul Moss) wandered silently, ethereally, with a spray bottle of holy water, watering both the invisible plants but…

  • Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe) (live-stream)

    Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe) (live-stream)

    If there’s a play that can benefit from some shaking up, it’s Romeo and Juliet. During the pre-performance materials, members of the cast and crew of the Globe’s current production spoke of challenging the idea that the play is a love story. But cultural understandings of Romeo and Juliet are deeply ingrained, and the play’s value for inciting…

  • Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre) (film)

    Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre) (film)

    A group of actors gather in a rehearsal room, chatting and laughing; we cut to them sat in chairs, making up three sides of a large square. It looks like meet-and-greet day, only there’s no director, no box set to show. Instead, it’s one of the actors, Lucian Msamati, who speaks, and he’s speaking the Prologue.…

  • Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre) @ The Dorfman (archival recording)

    Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre) @ The Dorfman (archival recording)

    The National Theatre’s schools’ productions have developed in enormous sophistication over the last couple of decades, and it’s testament to their success as creative works in their own right that, not only are they getting runs at the National’s south bank base, but that two of them (Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale, which I reviewed here) have…

  • Romeo + Juliet (Metcalfe Gordon Productions) (film)

    Romeo + Juliet (Metcalfe Gordon Productions) (film)

    For almost a year, now, there have been few opportunities to see new productions of Shakespeare inside a theatre; fewer still where actors are able to touch, to interact. Metcalfe Gordon Productions’ new theatre-film hybrid production of Romeo and Juliet is an experiment in using technology to reproduce what has been lost, filming the actors (mostly) separately…