ROMEO & JULIET

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Peter Evans

Bell Shakespeare

The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre to 7 September

 

Reviewed by Len Power 31 August 2025

 

Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, Shakespeare’s tragedy of ‘a pair of star cross’d lovers’ and their feuding families is one of his most popular plays.

The new production by director, Peter Evans, combines contemporary and traditional elements to bring clarity to both text and performance. The shining, dark set and basic black costumes, both designed by Anna Tregloan, make it clear that we are watching the play from a contemporary point of view.

The addition of colourful and traditional items of costume, as the play progresses, draw us back into the time and place of the story. The forest of overhead lighting, designed by Benjamin Cisterne, keeps the contemporary feel of the play while providing the atmosphere necessary for the various scenes. It is an attractive and successful overall design.

The contemporary aspects extend to the choice of actors, too. Age and gender have not driven the casting. Surrounding the young lovers are actors of similar age playing Juliet’s parents, the Friar, Mercutio, the Prince and others, stressing that we are watching a contemporary version of the play. While the story of the play never fails to involve, the style of production allows us to keep a slight distance, providing an opportunity to observe the play with great clarity.

There are some fine performances in this production. Madeline Li is a feisty, intelligent Juliet and Ryan Hodson appeals as an impetuous and personable Romeo knocked off balance by his sudden deep love for Juliet, leaving his youth behind. Both gave finely balanced and emotionally believable performances during their balcony scene. The final scene as they meet their deaths was superbly played and very moving.

Every performer in the ensemble was impressive with outstanding performances by Merridy Eastman as the Nurse, Khisraw Jones-Shukoor as the Friar and Brittany Santariga in the dual roles of the Prince and Mercutio.

Regardless of how many times you have seen it, Shakespeare’s play never fails to move an audience. This production is particularly successful because of its clarity and fine performances.

 

Photo by Pierre Toussaint

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/

ROMEO AND JULIET

 

 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

 Directed by Peter Evans. Set and costume designer Anna Tregloan. Lighting designer Benjamin Cisterne. Composer and sound designer  Max Lyandvert. Associate fight director Thomas Royce-Hampton. Voice and understudy director Jack Starkey-Gif. Choreographer Simone Sault.  Bell Shakespeare. The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. August 29=September 7. Bookings 62752700.

 Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Madeline Li as Juliet and Ryan Hodson as Romeo

 

 

Bell Shakespeare’s Artistic director Peter Evans has stripped back all superfluity to create a production of Romeo and Juliet that offers a powerful rendition of Shakespeare’s tragic tale of two star-crossed lovers. The set consists of two large platforms that encompass the Playhouse stage with a gap between to express the division that drives the action of the play. Above are globes that change colour to create the buoyant mood of the passage of love, but are not illuminated as misfortune and tragedy afflict the Houses of Montague and Capulet. Actors appear in black with add-ons to denote a change of character or occasion. Evans and his cast and creatives revive the traditional art of storytelling where engagement with the audience is riveting as though fresh-minted for all time. It is a tale told trippingly on the tongue serving the story and forecast with such clarity and import by the Prologue by Brittany Santariga.

 

Underpinning Evans’s seemingly sparse but richly layered production are Shakespeare’s themes of factional rivalry and hate, parenthood, the individual versus the state and the forcefulness of love in all its aspects. By playing out the emotions on an open stage unencumbered by distraction, Evans’s actors embody character with absolute conviction. In suiting the word to the action and the action to the word and holding the mirror as ‘twere up to nature, Evans’s cast have fashioned a Romeo and Juliet that is compelling in its modernity. Without the preconception of time or place, the audience is rapt in this fateful tale of doomed love. Thomas Royce-Hampton’s superbly choreographed sword fight between Tybalt (Tom Matthews) and Romeo (Ryan Hodson) and Anna Tregloan’s costume designs for the Masque, choreographed with finesse by Simone Sault, may reference the Elizabethan period but Evans’s tight direction ensures an immediacy that thrusts Shakespeare’s play into our own time and by its universality for all time.

Adinia Wirasti (Lady Capulet) Khisraw Jones-Shukoor (Friar Lawrence)
                                    and Michael Wahr (Capulet) 

I am reminded as I watch the action unfold of the Chorus’s prologue to Henry V.  “On your imaginations work” the Chorus asks. As Mercutio, played with larrikin bravado by Brittany Santariga, clutches at the wound there is no blood, nor when Lady Capulet’s hand is bathed in Tybalt’s blood and yet it is as palpable as if we were seeing it ooze from the sword’s fatal thrust. A carpet rolled out in Tregloan’s set design can represent the nave of the church where Friar Lawrence (Khisraw Jones- Shukoor) conspires to thwart the course of fate. It can guide us to the bedchamber of the distraught Juliet (Madeline Li) or become the tomb if our imaginations work.

With purposeful intent Max Lyandvert’s splendidly evocative composition and sound design directs our emotions from the blossoming infatuation of young love to the fury of the warring street gangs to the ominous sound of impending doom. This advancing tragedy is complemented by Benjamin Cisterne’s lighting design from a coloured stage to a stark sombriety. This is a carefully conceived production to relate a powerful tale and arouse the emotion.

Madeline Li (Juliet) and Ryan Hodson (Romeo) at the Masque
in Bell Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Evans has assembled the finest ensemble cast that I have seen play Shakespeare’s tragic tale of love and woe. In Madeline Li’s Juliet and Ryan Hodson’s Romeo   we see two young and emerging actors who are destined to light up future stages with their brilliance. Their impetuosity, naivety and passionate abandonment of consequence are played with such force that however well one knows the inevitability of their fate Li and Hodson deliver performances of such insight and truth that it is as though we are witnessing their lives unfold upon the stage for the very first time. Remember their names. They are the stars of tomorrow.

Merridy Eastman (Nurse) Madeline Li (Juliet)

Li and Hodson are in good company. There are fine performances from all cast in this version of Shakespeare’s reimagining of the original Italian story. Evans has cast actors of different ethnic backgrounds, lending a uniqueness to each individual role that illuminates character and response to the circumstance. Santariga delivers the most lucid and witty interpretation of Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech. James Thomasson’s Benvolio epitomizes loyalty in friendship, while Tom Matthews perfects the swagger of arrogance and Tybalt’s loathing of the Montagues. Parental dilemma and love of an only child finds conflicted feelings in Michael Wahr’s Capulet and Adinia Wirasti’s Lady Capulet. Merridy Eastman’s Nurse lends the drama some comic relief with the inadvertent comedy of the  simple, caring soul. Jack Halabi makes the best of the rather insipid role of the suitor Paris.  

Madeline Li (Juliet) Adinia Wirasti (Lady Capulet)
Michael Wahr (Capulet)

I look in amazement at Romeo and Juliet’s daunting national tour to all states and territories of Australia.  In its 35^th year Bell Shakespeare will be visiting twenty six cities and towns with arguably one of the best Bell Shakespeare productions the country is likely to see. Little wonder that Evans has chosen to let the actors carry the play as it was most likely performed in 1595, and edit the script to enable only the essential characters to tell the story. It makes for a far more dynamic performance of the play.  This production of Romeo and Juliet allows Shakespeare’s words to transport us to the streets of Verona and become totally immersed in this immortal tale of fateful Love . If Bell Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet comes to your town or a city nearby don’t miss it.

Photos by Brett Boardman   

  

 

 

Romeo and Juliet - Bell Shakespeare

 

 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.  Bell Shakespeare at Canberra Theatre Playhouse, August 29 – September 7 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening Night, September 1

Director – Peter Evans
Set & Costume Designer – Anna Tregloan
Lighting Designer – Benjamin Cisterne
Composer & Sound Designer – Max Lyandvert
Associate Fight Director – Thomas Royce-Hampton
Voice & Understudy Director – Jack Starkey-Gill
Choreographer – Simone Sault

Cast:
Juliet – Madeline Li; Nurse – Merridy Eastman; Paris – Jack Halabi
Romeo – Ryan Hodson; Friar – Khisraw Jones-Shukoor
Tybalt – Tom Mathews; Mercutio / Prince – Brittany Santariga
Benvolio – James Thomasson; Capulet – Michael Wahr
Lady Capulet – Adinia Wirasti
Understudy – Caitlin Burley; Thomas Royce-Hampton


William Shakespeare makes it very clear that he is presenting us with a play, which
 
“Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; 
The which if you with patient ears attend, 
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”

Bell Shakespeare, in this production thoroughly true to William’s intention, makes sure we miss nothing.  We see actors working brilliantly, taking on their characters, presenting us with a play of words, often times a play on words.

This requires, for a start, a director who clearly understands and knows how to impart that understanding of what is known as Presentational Style – the style necessary for Romeo and Juliet to become far more than a sentimental sob story of the two lovers’ deaths.  

It is a morality play about political ‘families’ becoming trapped in conflicts based purely on ‘loyalties’ and misrepresentations to the point of self-destruction.  

The only hope Shakespeare could offer was to have Capulet say finally “O brother Montague! Give me thy hand”, while Montague offers a grand “statue in pure gold” to commemorate Juliet.

If they had shaken hands from the beginning of the young men's violence, as the Prince had ordered, then it would not have become such a story of more woe.  Like the stories of Palestine and Israel, say.

The full value of this work by Peter Evans and his exciting team of actors is in the clarity of all those words, their meanings and their implications.  We feel particularly, as Evans’ writes in an excellent From the Director, for Romeo who “says of his intervention in the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt: I thought all for the best.”

But there is never such a thing as a ‘just’ war.  “Go hence” says the Prince of Verona in the play’s last words, “to have more talk of these sad things; 

For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

I thank Bell Shakespeare for the honesty and sincerity of their presentation of Romeo and Juliet.  

Their toil is not to be missed.