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Star cross'd lovers dance on
Romeo and Juliet: Chi Cao as Romeo. Picture: Bill Cooper Romeo and Juliet Birmingham Royal Ballet Birmingham Hippodrome **** IT may seem strange to say, but a sword fight
is one of the most memorable scenes in this ballet telling the tragic
story of star crossed lovers. But the clash of steel in Verona's market
place between sworn enemies - the Montagues and the Capulets - is
superbly choreographed and so realistic you genuinely feel concern for
the safety of the combatants. A dozen or more rivals stand toe-to-toe with blades
flashing until the Prince steps in and demands an end to the feud, but
when Romeo and his friends trick their way into the lavish masked ball
at the Capulets' home, love blossoms and the families are again at war. Chi Cao (Romeo) and Nao Sakuma (Juliet Capulet) are a
delight throughout, and their dancing when Juliet descends from her
balcony to meet her new love is superb. Stunning performances, too, from Robert Parker (Tybalt),
Alexander Campbell (Mercutio) and Steven Monteith (Benvolio), and the
entire company dance beautifully in the ballroom scene. Inevitably, perhaps, this ballet appears to have more
acting than dancing at times...almost a feeling of watching a silent
movie in the final heart-rending moments when Romeo finds his lover
apparently dead in the family tomb, and takes his own life. Many of the costumes and sets are magnificent, with
the possible exception of Juliet's bedroom which seems somewhat sparse. Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan
to Prokofiev's music, played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by
Paul Murphy, runs to Saturday night 02.10.10 Paul Marston
Another pointe of view **** SHAKESPEARE'S Romeo and Juliet is probably
the greatest love story ever told. A tale full of passion and of warring
families, the Montagues and the Capulets, in mediaeval Verona - the two
households, both alike in dignity. Their feud is the constant theme in both the play and
the ballet and the choreography of the fight scenes is masterful with
flashing blades filling the stage with a real touch of the Errol Flynns. Mind you the blades could do with a bit of honing to
improve their efficiency. It took both Mercutio (Mathias Dingman) and
Tybalt (Robert Gravenor) absolute ages to shuffle off their mortal coils
after being run through. In Mercutio's case in particular there are
Wagner operas that don't last as long as his death throes. With wholesale cast changes star of the evening was
Jenna Roberts who has both the waif like vulnerability and innocence of
Juliet, who remember was 14, as well as looking and dancing like a
dream. No wonder Romeo fell for her.
Romeo is always a problem whatever the production be
it a ballet or a play. Male ballet dancers, or actors, with the
stature and experience to play the role will invariable struggle to
appear as a teenager – our star cross'd lover was supposedly 15 -
tormented by their first romance Zeffirelli managed it in his 1968 film with a
15-year-old Olivia Hussey as young Miss Capulet and the 17-year-old, 5ft
8in and young looking Leonard Whiting as Mrs Montague's youngest lad but
in most productions you have to pretend Romeo is still of school age. Iain Mackay's Romeo, for example, is a powerful,
athletic, strapping lad but it is not all soaring leaps and muscle; he
manages to convey a sense of fun and mischief, as with the scene when
the nurse, the always excellent Marion Tait, tries to deliver a message
from Juliet and he shows a sensitive, lightness of touch in his pas de
deux with Juliet and you can feel the anguish at the end when he
believes Juliet, who is drugged, is really dead so, his heart broken, he
kills himself (dying mercifully quickly) only for Juliet to then awaken,
discover her new husband has left her a new widow and so she completes
the tragedy by taking her own life. For never was a story of more woe The sets and costumes are sumptuous the music
compelling and the dancing, as we have come to expect from the BRB, is
superb. All that was missing was that indefinable spark that lifts the
excellent to the memorable. You can't rehearse it, bottle it, cast it or
add it. It is either there or it isn't, all in the lap of the Gods of
theatre - last night was merely excellent. Roger Clarke
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