Above all, this is a knowing, mature, and actorly take on a classic. Uniting poetry, play, pictures, and dance, the cross-medium delights raise the tragedy to epic proportions. I was gripped, stunned, and moved by its beauty, the power and cleverness of the text singing anew with such a confident presentation. Upon leaving, my heart felt strangely light. I had really seen Romeo and Juliet. I also now wonder: is dance simply the best accompaniment to tragedy?
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“While we greatly enjoyed this piece, we found it to rely upon a prior knowledge of the story and its themes so along with our recommendation, we also advise a dive into previous productions to fully appreciate the nuances of this one.”
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“Running at two hours with no interval, and with not much of a set to speak of, it’s a rare production that successfully conveys the play’s fairly wild timeline - the titular starcross’d lovers meet and marry in under 24 hours, and have taken their own lives just a couple of days later. “
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“Frecknall’s viscerally accessible production captures the youthful impulsiveness of those callow protagonists...emphasises how the conflicts and traumas here are a generational inheritance, dooming the youngsters before they even begin...This is a gut-punch of a ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ brimming with fire and feeling.”
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“It is the Shakespeare play that announces its own running time — and for once ‘the two hours’ traffic of our stage’ is a promise that is fulfilled here. Yet while it has bright ideas aplenty, this condensed reinvention from the director Rebecca Frecknall is less convincing than the shows that have put her on such a hot streak lately”
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“Performed at exactly the ‘two hours traffic’ promised in the prologue, without an interval, it hurtles towards the end...But there is power in this pace: the dead lovers remain alone and undiscovered, which makes the end starker and more shocking, somehow.”
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“It’s not quite the unalloyed triumph of Frecknall’s recent work, but it does give you that same shocking sensation of being hit by a truck. Once again, she has taken a very familiar work and given it fresh impact; no mean feat. This is a gut-punch of a ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ brimming with fire and feeling.”
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“This is a tragedy that pulses with life. All the jittery energy, the uncertainty, frustration, rage and wild excitement of teenage existence are here, in an envisioning of Shakespeare’s tale of doomed innocence that is as volatile as a hormonal adolescent mood swing.”
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