Like Fire and Powder - Review: Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet – it must be the single story in the world that the word ‘timeless’ has most been used next to. You all know the plot; you all know the quotes; maybe you don’t know all of the brilliantly human energy in the text. I think this reworking of it – set in an 80s American summer camp, and importantly GAY – does a good job of capturing that, but maybe that’s just because I struggle to care about heterosexual romances. 

I had a chat with the Director Lila Patterson about her inspirations: “I've always been a really big fan of shitty '70s and '80s horror, so I've seen a lot of summer camp slashers, like Sleepaway Camp, the Friday 13th films and things like that [...]  I really enjoy the heightened emotion, often the impressive technical elements in these otherwise quite low budget, poorly made films. They would often still put quite a lot of effort and artistry into the violence [...] As well as having sometimes fairly sophisticated themes about sex and violence and how those things can often go hand in hand or are two sides of the same coin. And as you're hearing me say that, you're thinking of Romeo and Juliet, right? Also when I think of the '80s, I think of this era, of this attempt of return to the traditional family structure and conservative politics in the States after the political upheaval and progressive social and political movements of the '60s and '70s. I think that Romeo and Juliet as a play deals a lot with family and family structure and sexual repression in a way that I thought connected really coherently with the ideas that come up in a lot of these films.”

ID: Geordie Coles, Eilidh Read, and Eva Rieckewald. Credit: Amelia Thompson.

I am not American; I have never been to a summer camp of any variety; I wasn’t alive during the 80s; I have never watched any of the 80s American summer camp slasher films which inspired Lila, or anything even adjacent. I’m boring! Luckily this production understands the existence of boring people like me, and begins with a modern-day campfire (the footlights very gently flickering in orange), with the cast gathered around Geordie Coles (the Friar) chatting away happily in contemporary English. Geordie pulls out a very bright torch (which will be put to deadly use blinding the audience throughout the show), puts it up to his chin dramatic ghost story style, and starts to tell a scary legend from the distant age of the 80s, back when they spoke all Shakespearean and wore short shorts. This is a very fun framing device (I slightly wish there was more of it – its return at the end is my single favourite moment of the night).

“Two colour teams, both alike in dignity/In fair Camp Verona, where we lay our scene” – there are obviously some slight adaptations to the script, and actually I wish they were much more extensive and wide-ranging. My favourite bits are when people just speak natural English, but this production is annoyingly faithful. Perhaps some people will be performatively outraged at the slight violations of Shakespeare’s pentameter, especially since this play is from Shakespeare’s very-iambic-pentameter-with-rhymes-and-barely-any-prose era – but those people are probably little babies. Shakespeare grew out of it and so can we. The adapted lines are at their best when their unfamiliar extra syllables emphasise the change in content, such as when Freddie Greenwood as the Prince chides the ‘‘Profaners of these neighbour-stainéd dodgeballs” or when Donna-Marie French’s Juliet sensually says “Nor arm nor face nor any other part/Belonging to a woman”. Since every word of this play is so well-known, change is exciting. But there are tragically few of these moments, and lots of incongruous mentions of swords and men. Just go all in! The scene where Juliet thinks Romeo (Eilidh Read) has been killed and not Tybalt (Ian Crews) is marred by the Nurse (Poppy Kimitris) saying “he’s dead”, which couldn’t refer to Eilidh’s Romeo (unless Romeo secretly uses he/she pronouns, which would be funky fresh). There are lots of cuts, which will give me a little much-needed extra sleep time as soon as I finish writing this. I would say that the cuts bring the play thankfully closer to being a “two hours’ traffic of our stage”, if that line hadn’t also been cut. 

ID: Most of the cast at the ball. Credit: Amelia Thompson.

Back to the show itself: a big Camp Verona sign hangs down in the background, with Capulet and Montague banners on either side that get lit up in their respective colours in Capulet and Montague scenes (very helpful for my Week 5-addled brain). Capulets are very blue; Montagues are very red. A friend expresses her frustration that these are confusingly opposite colours from those used in (the masterpiece) Gnomeo and Juliet. I think Romeo is a sad over-dramatic little wuss who should be blue, whereas Juliet is much more practical and takes initiative and should be red. Dying of poison is blue; taking the agency to stab yourself is red. Big up Gnomeo and Juliet. However I do admit it makes sense for the stiffly controlling Capulets to be blue, and the more freewheeling Montagues to be red – the star-crossed lovers are just opposite colours at heart.

They meet, of course, at a ball: a glitterball comes down with drapes and stars, reflecting red and green and blue dots everywhere (tech by Willa Meloth and Annalise Roberts), and the cast assemble to dance in sync (this was very fun – I wish there were more dances) led by the ‘ancient lady’ Poppy. Anyone would seem ancient to a thirteen-year-old, and Donna and Eilidh’s frustrations at Poppy being sweetly doting or happily chatting away are very charming. She says ‘what a jaunt have I’, but I am looking at her jorts and can only hear ‘what a jort have I’ – they’re very good jorts.

ID: Geordie Coles and Donna-Marie French. Credit: Amelia Thompson.

Geordie’s Friar is the camp counsellor who lets everything go wrong – he walks slowly down the stairs next to the audience (the whole space of the Byre gets used, all the time) talking about his ‘mickle’ ‘plant’ and fondling a joint. The Friar is normally the voice of reason in the play, and this untrustworthy stoner version adds more chaos and uncertainty. Eva Rieckewald is an incredibly energetic and chaotic Mercutio, showing up by the pool (simulated with a low fogger) in pink heart sunglasses, and calling to the audience for support as she duels with Tybalt. 

Some of the most famous and successful Romeos ever have been women, but it’s rare to have an explicitly lesbian interpretation of this story – in this Romeo is explicitly a woman who gets contrasted against the expectations of Juliet marrying a man. Producer Kritvi Gupta says “the whole idea of forbidden lovers perfectly maps onto queer stories. And then you have the dynamic between Juliet, her family, and Paris, and how there's a lot of emphasis that Juliet needs to marry a man; and that she expresses throughout the play a lot of disinterest in marrying Paris, but she doesn't often specifically talk about Paris. She talks about this idea of marrying him and not wanting that for herself, but then obviously wants to marry Romeo.”

ID: Donna-Marie French and Eilidh Read. Credit: Amelia Thompson.

Eilidh and Donna strongly emphasise their characters’ being quite young teenagers, with enormous emotions and metaphors – they both make the play’s verse sound so naturally expressive, and real. Eilidh is constantly in motion (except when she’s dramatically draping herself over the furniture), literally bouncing around and bouncing between emotions. She is the energetic self-romanticising artiste – in her first scene she brings out a notebook and jots down her overwrought poetry for Rosaline on the spot (something she has no need of when she encounters real love and more concrete metaphors in Juliet). Her expressions of joy are always extreme movements, whereas Donna’s isolated Juliet stays close to her bed, and stilly opens her heart to the audience. These monologues are extremely powerful: Donna is brilliant at innocent heartfelt emotion; at love, and hopefulness, and frantic waiting, and frustration, and grief. She makes very good screeching sounds when she’s annoyed; Eilidh does too, but more in sexual frustration.

Speaking of sexual frustration! The famous balcony scene is replaced with a bunk bed scene, which works incredibly well. Eilidh reaches up to Donna’s hand, and climbs up to the top bunk, and they’re suddenly so close together and all over each other, and when Donna gets called away she climbs down leaving Eilidh up there – and a friend points out to me that this could have been a brilliant opportunity to imply them fucking on the first night, which would be interesting (since this night is euphemistically referred to in the next scene) and would also reflect how horny modern people actually behave. A short highly symbolic blackout would do wonders. When they do finally get together it’s on the lower bunk instead – I feel for Juliet’s unseen long-suffering roommate. Luckily for me there is no shortage of the two making out and being very in love with each other (credit to intimacy coordinator Charley Beck), which pretty much fills my gayness-in-theatre quota for the semester (as indeed it has to). Another friend is alarmed by the quantity of kissing, which I think is a good measure of there being almost enough kissing. 

Lila says “in Saint Andrews it can often feel like a summer camp.You're so far removed from reality in the middle of nowhere. Things feel so much deeper and more important than they really are. Things take on a gravity that they wouldn't normally in the real world. Romantic relationships can feel so tragic and so consequential and substantial. [...] And also I think we're seeing this mirror of a lot what was going on politically and socially in the 1980s of  having this decade of a lot of political liberation movements that are then responded to with this incredibly conservative backlash”. I personally enjoyed this play for its central romance and didn’t pay much attention to other stuff; I also forgot it was supposed to be considered unusual to be gay (a consequence of living in the bubble). All sorts of criticisms could be leveled at how consistently the summer camp setting fits with the plot of the play, particularly when it comes to solemn things like marriages and funerals – but with productions of Shakespeare that preserve most of the script, as this one does, I think that the only thing that matters about the setting is if the vibes are right, and the vibes are very good fun with this one.

X
other erin