Much was riding on Stratford's opening-night production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in the great Canadian Festival's landmark Festival Theater. The 2008 season had been chosen by three artistic directors under the general direction of Antoni Cimolino; but a few months before it opened, Marti Maraden and Don Shipley resigned as artistic directors, citing interference by Cimolino and favoritism toward the ideas of artistic director #3, Des McAnuff. McAnuff was named sole artistic director (under General Director Cimolino), and was scheduled anyway to open the season with his new production of Romeo and Juliet.
So this Romeo and Juliet was a kind of test-case for Stratford's new artistic director. A dual Canadian and United States citizen, McAnuff is an international award-winning, star director but has directed only one major production at Stratford before this season, an iffy Macbeth more than two decades ago.
[Interestingly, just before that, Stratford had appointed four Canadians as co-artistic directors, and they had been replaced before the season opened with John Hirsch.]
Stratford's Festival Theater, the model for the Chichester Festival Theatre in England and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, has a magnificent hexagonal thrust stage in front of a modified Shakespearean three-level housing structure, like that of the original Globe Theatre. A director can do anything on it.
Gloriously equipped technically, it is also endlessly versatile, with never fewer than ten entrance/exits including three vomitoria going out under the audience as well as onstage elevator-openings going down into the pit. Using that stage is a challenge many directors have found intimidating.
McAnuff turns out to be very accomplished, indeed, at making full use of that stage; and his almost cinematically-shifting, constant action creates a contemporary-feeling, exciting Romeo and Juliet, although a very bleak-toned one. Any racial connotations of his casting the Capulets with African-Canadian and African-American actors and the Montagues with Caucasians he leaves at mere visual suggestion: McAnuff allows his actors to play with classical Shakespearean diction and deportment but avoids the late Joseph Papp's annoying tendency to cast actors of varying races and then direct them to play racial stereotypes in classical roles.
The modern-feeling thematic concerns of McAnuff's R&J stress the conflicts between the hatreds of the adults versus the high spirits and overpowering love of the two young leads.
They (Gareth Potter's dashing Romeo and Nikki M. James' absolutely lovely Juliet) are just fine; Ms James' growing sensuality as Juliet matures before our eyes is very striking. Evan Buliung's playful Mercutio and Timothy D. Stickney's almost too-scary Tybalt are also effective, and Steve Rankin's fights look exciting onstage. Steven Sutcliffe's handsome, noble Paris reminds me of the ballet dancers who often look all-too good as alternative suitors in this role. John Vickery as a blustery Capulet and Roy Lewis as a dignified Montague make nice opposites, but Sophia Walker makes little impression as Lady Capulet. And Peter Donaldson as an extraordinarily commanding Friar Lawrence and Lucy Peacock as an equally stage-eating Nurse to Juliet raise some questions about directorial balance. I don't think that the Friar and Nurse are intended to be the dominant star roles.
The modern-dress suits and coats, etc. don't suggest a definite period but work well to indicate the timelessness of the story. And the production in general moves so well that its somewhat innocuous designs seem appropriate enough in mood and import to suffice, if not enchant. Robert Thomson's lighting, however, is often memorable. Somehow it suggested to me, as did some of the final scenes, that McAnuff has seen one of the more striking "R&J" ballets, like John Cranko's.
In general, the opening seemed a success. This is a top-level production of the great Shakespeare tragedy, and one that might engender discussions and arguments; but not, I think, one that would move anyone to tears.
Nikki M. James (Juliet) & Gareth Potter (Romeo)
