The year 2022 marked the four hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In the first four hundred years of showing Romeo and Juliet, directors largely concerned themselves with showing a version of the play true to its original form. For the last twenty-eight years, Shakespeare’s Globe has allowed directors to experiment with new takes on Shakespeare’s classics, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream and now Romeo and Juliet. Director Sean Holmes envisioned a radically different setting for Romeo and Juliet, transferring the plot from Verona to the Wild West. On Wednesday, June 25, I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Holmes’ Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. In this condensed review, I will highlight the production’s greatest successes before discussing its possible avenues for improvement.
Though not all actors impressed during this performance, Michael Elcock (Mercutio) and Jamie Rose-Monk excelled. Directors of Romeo and Juliet have traditionally utilized the character of Mercutio as comic relief, but few have ever done so to the degree that Holmes did in this production. Elcock matched such expectations, generating laughs even when Mercutio’s speech inspires discomfort, such as during the Queen Mab speech. Elcock consistently succeeded in creating laughs and therefore excelled in his role.
Similarly to Elcock, Rose-Monk filled her role superbly by skillfully focusing on timing to summon laughter. I found myself comparing Rose-Monk’s performance as the Nurse to Penny Laden’s in Dominic Dromgoole’s 2009 production of Romeo and Juliet. While Rose-Monk may have fallen short of Laden in showing the Nurse’s sorrow and pity, she undoubtedly exceeded Laden in creating laughs. Though Holmes did not expect complexity from Rose-Monk’s character, Rose-Monk deserves praise for consistently providing comedic relief throughout the play.
Holmes’ production also impressed with its use of the set. Throughout the production, the set (the front of a barn) did not change; instead, the actors used a few chairs placed against the barn’s wall to indicate scene changes. During the scene in which Romeo enters the tomb to find Juliet, the deceased characters (Mercutio, Tybalt, and eventually Count Paris) sit erect in the chairs to indicate the presence of tombstones. Though I typically groan at productions that use few props, I appreciated this creative way of indicating tombstones because it did well to capture the idea that Romeo speaks to people he knew, not merely stones. Rawaed Asde (Romeo) excelled in creating the intense emotions of this scene amidst the otherwise comedic tones of the production.
Though Asde’s acting passed in the production, Lola Shalam’s (Juliet’s) did not. Shalam did well in fueling the comedic moments of the play, but she fell short at depicting Juliet’s crash into deep grief. In Act three Scene two, the Nurse accidentally creates the impression while speaking to Juliet that Romeo died; this impression should undoubtedly inspire grief in Juliet. Shalam’s Juliet, however, appeared surprisingly unaffected by the devastating news. Holmes should review this issue with Shalam to eliminate possible confusion that could arise.
Holmes should also review Tybalt’s role in his production. Despite Tybalt’s crucial role in the play, Holmes relegates Callam Callaghan’s character to fewer lines. Tybalt importantly inspires a sense of crisis in Romeo; if not for Tybalt’s stubbornness, why would Romeo kill Tybalt? With Holmes’ Tybalt, such a question seems slightly more difficult to answer, especially when compared to Dromgoole’s Tybalt. Crucially, Holmes omitted much of the frustration between Capulet and Tybalt – which would have helped in contextualizing Tybalt’s behavior. Perhaps if the production focused less on comedy and more on tragedy, there would be room for such fascinating complexities. Though Sean Holmes’ Romeo and Juliet did not exceptionally impress, it still showed a unique character infrequently observed in showings of literary classics. Though the text of Shakespeare’s play remained unmodified for the production, the wild west theme did add new complexities. In particular, the use of guns during what would be sword fights provided a modern way of thinking about the integrity of Romeo’s character. Still, Holmes should look to improve the production by expanding the emotional range of his characters (particularly Juliet). Without Juliet’s emotional extremities, the production loses the tragic character of the play and risks falling unintentionally into the realm of parody.
Charlie Burns is a contributing writer for The College Reporter. His email is cburns1@fandm.edu.