Joe Calarco’s bold reimagining of the story of Romeo and Juliet as a passionate voyage of discovery by four public school boys who, on discovering a hidden copy of the script, embark on a secret illicit reenactment of the familiar text and classic lines does bring a fresh feel to the play and makes Shakespeare’s words accessible to a young audience. However, despite the best efforts of the young cast, some exquisite lighting and a rumbling soundscape of a clicking clock, a heartbeat and thunder, it does make the story somewhat one dimensional around the discovery of young love. The tension between the Capulet and the Montague families is present but the focus switches to the two lovers and the roles of Friar Lawrence and Juliet’s Nurse and at times, it is not enough to hold our attention.

Paul Stacey directs the pivotal scenes on the raised central platform while the boys rigid school routine is depicted in chanting from the lower surrounding areas and performers not in a scene sit fully engaged in the action on chairs around the platform. It does create a fast-paced show with minimal settings, but it is never quite clear whether we are watching a rehearsed reading, a four handed performance of extracts from the original play, or a secret boy’s midnight tryst in which they use the text to explore their own relationships. The separation of Shakespeare’s characters from the personalities of the four students needs to be more clearly drawn in the script and direction.

However, Elijah Ferreira as Romeo has great physicality, full of expectant energy, constantly glancing at the other boys and grabbing our attention while speaking the words with wonderful clarity and diction. His admiration and desire for Brayden Emmanuel’s Juliet is clear from the outset as he sneaks a knowing glance across the stage at his fellow schoolboy and is well developed throughout as his anguish and frustrations grows. When Emmanuel delivers the “Romeo banished “ speech, he too packs plenty of powerful emotion into the words as tears roll down his face. The emphasis becomes their love for each other as students rather than characters.

This is also an ensemble piece with the other two actors having as much stage time and doubling up in roles. Tom Sowinski has great fun as Nurse with a gleeful tongue in cheek delivery, and exaggerated expressions early on replaced by serious concern later. Luke Daniels, briefly as Mercutio and later Friar Lawrence, adds another strong stage presence. Together, they are occasionally called on to act as a chorus in speaking other characters lines with echoing sound to add to the drama. Despite gradually stripping off the formal elements of their school uniforms as the play progresses, they remain students in a secret drama club. The script becomes a fifth character, always in sight, sometime read from, violently discarded, or rushed for to check what happens next or remind us in the audience which extract is up next.

Their efforts are enhanced by John Rainsforth wonderful lighting design, which illuminates Anna Kelsey’s simple raised platform covered in marquetry in subtle varied ways to add atmosphere, and uses handheld torches to illuminate the famous balcony scene, here delivered from a chair. Even the ceiling piece with LED strips helps create the Friar’s cell while, at other times, echoing the theatre metal beams. Throughout the show, Jamie Lu’s soundscape rumbles in the background with bell tolls and rainfall building the impending doom. For a small venue, this is a technically accomplished staging of the play, full of atmosphere and foreboding.

There is a strong community feel about Reading Rep’s venue, its audience and creative team. It has a vision of what it wants to be and there is always an energy and creativity to their chosen works. The limitations of the venue are used to advantage to create intimacy and atmosphere, and the generally young cast members are exciting talents under Paul Stacey’s guidance. They keep taking familiar stories, Jekyll and Hyde, A Christmas Carol or Hedda Gabler, and reinventing them into a modern form in line with their own ethos. This is a risky model as it invites comparison with what had gone before in these classic stories and the new script has to stand up to and add to our understanding of the narrative and themes. For all the outstanding efforts of this cast and creative team, this script which should have been called ‘Calarco’s R & J’ falls short of Shakespeare’s version and his reimagining with a LGBTQIA+ voice doesn’t quite hit the mark, leaving you admiring the effort but confused and longing for the original where a boy dressed as a girl desiring the boy might have brought the two narratives more powerfully together in a clearer play within a play context.

*** Three stars

Reviewed by: Nick Wayne

Shakespeare’s R&J plays at Reading Rep Theatre until 4 November, with further information here.