Robert Tanitch reviews Romeo et Juliette at London Coliseum.
Friar Laurence is much to blame for the tragedy that befalls Romeo and Juliet. So it is interesting, in Jean Christophe Maillot’s 1996 lively, classical-contemporary take on Shakespeare for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, to see him taking centre stage and full responsibility.
The tragedy is seen through his distraught perspective in flashback with freeze-frames. The friar (Alexis Oliveira) is played young and agile and he is accompanied by two acolytes.
Maillot presumes everybody knows the story; even so the transition from bed to grave is so truncated that you may wonder what is going on. Young Romeo (Stephen Bourgond) is so shocked to find Juliette (Anja Behrend) dead that he attempts to bring her back to life with some necrophilia.
The high spots include the balcony scene (without balcony), the morning after the lovers have consummated their marriage (very erotic) and the big fight between the Capulets and Montagues in slow motion which ends with Romeo throttling Tybalt.
What gives the drama, as always, its energy and pace, and its emotional intensity, is Prokofiev’s brilliant, thrilling score, which, even when it is recorded, still has enormous power.
There’s good work from Mimoza Koike as Juliette’s mother and from Maude Sabourin as the Nurse. The most exciting performance, a star turn, is by Gabriele Corrado as Tybalt.
The strikingly clean, simple and uncluttered set is by Ernest Pignon-Ernest
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