© Bill Cooper RNZB are touring the UK in April/May 2004 with R&J and a Triple Bill. More details when we have them. Hampson's RNBZ diary RNZB 'Romeo' reviews 'Romeo' reviews Turner in reviews Wagner in reviews Futcher in reviews Lord in reviews Symonds in reviews Wright in reviews recent RNZB reviews RNZB web site more Bruce Marriott reviews

Well I'm pleased to say Christopher Hampson's new Romeo and Juliet, premiered by Royal New Zealand Ballet on the 6th June, succeeds splendidly in finding a fresh take on the story and most pleasantly also in the vocabulary of its telling. For me it's a benchmark of a production, less about ballet sparkle and more about emotions and reality; a production that I think other companies will also want.

The key to this Romeo and Juliet is that it sets the action in the 20th century and gives it cinematic pace. The former makes the story more immediate, while the latter means there are no pauses in the action and the audience cannot escape the pressure of the story. Never the shortest of ballets, this production has shed some clutter and just never seems to let up. Having seen it four times I am hard-pressed to find anything extraneous.

The story is still set in Italy, and all the traditional characters' names are retained, but the Montagues and Capulets are powerful businessmen with shadowy connections, and their wives women who lunch, shop and have lovers. Lady Capulet is particularly prominent in this production and its rich detail suggests that she is a lover of Tybalt. Friar Lawrence, and his torment and conspiracy in events, is also more significant - not simply the man ready for the instant marriage and drug deal that you find in MacMillan for instance. Escalus, who tries to maintain some sort of peace between the factions, is actually a Marlon Brando, godfather, of a character - somebody you listen to.

The street fighting between families involves knives, baseball bats and iron bars, underscoring its place in the here and now. However other characters' dress is from the 20's and 30's like the nurse and the village wedding party. Overall you get a feeling of relevance and timelessness - it could be now, a generation ago or several generations ago.

The sweeping cinematic approach is a success, due in no small part to Hampson's collaborators, the designer Tracy Grant and John Rayment on lighting. The set designs are unusual featuring a large wall/flight of stairs that can arc right across the stage and either present you with a dark market square or a white interior for Juliet's bedroom and the Chapel.

Lady Capulet (Larissa Wright) and Tybalt (Geordan Wilcox)
© Maarten Holl

Scenes change rapidly, and dancers move with the set and through doors within it. The structure does not merely portray one stage space: while the main action might be in the market square you can see snatches of the village wedding off to the side and spilling into the wings. At other times the wall structure becomes Juliet's balcony or stairs that make entrances to the Capulet's ball very grand indeed.

The set is for the most part sparse, day being indicated by yellow lighting washes and evening with dark blue and a huge moon with all its craters and imperfections looming over nights that are too short. If the set is entirely monochromatic the costumes use vivid colour - luscious carmine reds, particularly for the lovers. The costumes and headdresses for the Capulet's ball are particularly sumptuous and beautiful.

While everybody was talking about the designs and lighting, this is most definitely not a design-led production; rather they are designs that wonderfully support the story-telling without dominating. Grant's primary experience is in opera and theatre, with this only her second dance commission; one can only hope she is offered many more (and says yes to them of course!).

Hampson's Romeo and Juliet is a ballet of definitive moments - the fighting is somehow fiercer, the hatred darker and the love more intense and physical. Romeo's killing of Tybalt is horrific: having disarmed him, he grabs his hair, pulls his head back and coolly slits his throat as Lady Capulet and Juliet arrive on the scene. Lady Capulet's despair and rage at Tybalt's murder is the strongest climax to Act 2 I've seen and Juliet's witnessing of it underlines the chasm that their love somehow spans. You are amazed that at the start of Act 3 she is actually in bed with a Romeo who so calculatedly killed a foe.

Alex Wagner as Romeo, Graham Fletcher as Tybalt
© Bill Cooper

There is another shocking moment in Juliet's bedroom when her mother and father are remonstrating with her about her refusal to accept Paris. Her mother violently attacks her - brief, jarring. Everybody is dazed, Paris, Lord Capulet, the nurse and indeed the audience. Juliet is totally alone - punched even by her own mother.

There are of course several pas de deux between Romeo and Juliet and in these Hampson chooses his moments with care. The greatest of them is not the balcony pdd we might all expect, but that in the bedroom at the start of Act 3. Almost naked, all coyness forgotten, these two lovers are so absorbed in the touch and warmth of their bodies that the chaos outside is as nothing. No tricks or stunts are needed. Earlier, the dancing following their initial meeting at the ball is sweet, innocent and well observed. The balcony pdd has some tough and original moves but it is not a ceaseless climactic affair and overall the pdd feel more an integrated part of the story than isolated nuggets that we wait for, skimming over intervening scenes.

Jane Turner as Juliet and Alex Wagner as Romeo
© Bill Cooper

Royal New Zealand Ballet has fielded two main casts, quite rightly including some of their younger dancers in the company. The premiere featured Jane Turner and Alex Wagner; he is a strong dancer and actor whom every mother would want as a son. Jane Turner danced as the ordinary girl who discovers the love of her life and tries to make sense of it all - a luminous and vivid performance that seemed right to me, particularly at their second performance when less nerves were in evidence all around. The other casts were led by a young and tiny Megan Futcher, a Juliet full of beans, strong and up for anything and yet with a face full of pathos that signalled the trouble ahead. Her Romeo was Craig Lord, wonderfully musical but not yet fully under the skin of the role. Theirs is a partnership to watch develop.

There are many strong character roles, which for the most part were danced well, but I particularly liked Vivencio Samblaceno and Larissa Wright's Lord and Lady Capulet: such natural authority and realistic acting - all the sadder to hear that Larissa, who used to dance with Northern Ballet Theatre, is retiring this year. Pieter Symonds' truly loud, tarty and man-eating Lady Capulet was also developing nicely. I also much enjoyed Nadine Tyson's rumbustious, although yet trustworthy, nurse.

Mercutio's casting changed because of injury and the audience much enjoyed the diminutive Korean Ji Hoon Yeom. Technically something of a whiz, his rather downmarket Russian Jester approach to the role jarred with me. I preferred Jacob Sofer, fresh from school into the company this last year. He let the steps do much of the talking, acted brilliantly for a first performance, and fitted the production values far better.

The ballet's ending is special I think. Rightly, only Juliet's body is in the crypt and Romeo is just there to grieve rather than having to knife Paris onto the bargain. As the poison takes effect on Romeo, Juliet stirs and for brief seconds they embrace, each there, if only for moments, with the other. I found it deeply touching. As the music subsides they are both bathed in red light before a shaft of white light signifies the flight of their spirits to eternity. Even after four performances, I am still not sure about this final lighting trick but most of the audience seemed utterly enthralled and I bow (a little!) to wider taste.

Megan Futcher as Juliet and Craig Lord as Romeo
© Maarten Holl

The Wellington audience are a demonstrative lot and there was much whooping, stamping and clapping during the curtain calls - as well there might be. I can't immediately speak for other pieces in the RNZB repertoire but they look a fine company and in Hampson's Romeo and Juliet, and their performance of it, Royal New Zealand have a piece they can take anywhere in the world and perform with pride and confidence, secure in the knowledge they have a winner. UK readers will be able to make up their own minds next year (April 2004) when the company tours the production to London, Scotland and the regions. If you cannot wait you could do worse than see the company on their home turf - great country, strong company. And 24 hours in a plane is nothing for a good night of ballet really...