After Juliet

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It’s certainly respectable enough—taking on Shakespeare is no easy task, but Macdonald appropriately channels the wild (oftentimes conflicting) emotions of the teenage characters and the entire text simmers with the restlessness and resentment that is baked into Verona’s very foundation. Though this play wisely does not attempt to mimic Shakespearean language or meter, it’s written in a format that walks the line between the poetry of Romeo and Juliet and the contemporary language of today. I am well aware from some of my other Shakespeare retellings that this is quite difficult to accomplish; After Juliet neither feels wildly anachronistic nor like a lofty attempt to mimic Victorian English. Shakespeare situates this maturation directly after Juliet’s wedding night, linking the idea of development from childhood to adulthood with sexual experience. Indeed, Juliet feels so strong that she defies her father, but in that action she learns the limit of her power. Strong as she might be, Juliet is still a woman in a male-dominated world. One might think that Juliet should just take her father up on his offer to disown her and go to live with Romeo in Mantua. That is not an option. Juliet, as a woman, cannot leave society; and her father has the right to make her do as he wishes. Though defeated by her father, Juliet does not revert to being a little girl. She recognizes the limits of her power and, if another way cannot be found, determines to use it: for a woman in Verona who cannot control the direction of her life, suicide, the brute ability to live or not live that life, can represent the only means of asserting authority over the self. Lady Capulet tells Juliet about Capulet’s plan for her to marry Paris on Thursday, explaining that he wishes to make her happy. Juliet is appalled. She rejects the match, saying “I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear / It shall be Romeo—whom you know I hate— / Rather than Paris” (3.5.121–123). Capulet enters the chamber. When he learns of Juliet’s determination to defy him, he becomes enraged and threatens to disown Juliet if she refuses to obey him. When Juliet entreats her mother to intercede, her mother denies her help. Baz Luhrman’s film of Romeo and Juliet with Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio prompted Sharman Macdonald’s 13-year-old daughter Keira Knightley to tell her to write play about Rosaline. Undoubtedly Rosaline appears on stage in Romeo and Juliet and at the Capulet’s party but she is not in the cast list and, although Romeo is besotted with her in Act I Scene 1, she is only mentioned twice. The daughter's demand together with the film's electrifying music and the tough sinewy style that made the Shakespearean language a dialect that young people could use, led Sharman Macdonald to speculate on how she could explore what happened in the days immediately after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.

Her angry tirade to Juliet at the lovers tomb is wonderful, and reminiscent of Brian Patten's poem, A Few Questions About Romeo – "Could he still have drunk that potion had he known / without her the world still glowed / and love was not confined / in one shape alone? … Poor Romeo, poor Juliet, poor human race". Most of the comedy derives from similar tensions; though “& Juliet” is jokey, and its authorship is entirely male, its feminist critique is real enough, winking alternately at Shakespeare’s assumptions and ours. At one point, Anne summarily up-ages Juliet by about a decade because she’s “not going clubbing with a 13-year-old” — nor (it goes unsaid) letting a 13-year-old marry.

The strength of the above performances highlighted the weakness in others, for which I have to cast another stone at the Directors, by not paying attention to characterisation and to the drama itself. Tara Quinn had the lion's share of dialogue, but failed to live up to it. Her long speeches were monotonous and needed much more variation and impetus; she has presence in abundance, and the fight scene was a real bonus, but she must pay more attention to what she is saying, and also to watch her diction. Miriam Early as Bianca was inaudible for most of the evening, and surely the Directors must bear some portion of the blame for this, because although the feeling was there, we just couldn't hear it! This performance seemed somewhat confused between its Renaissance and more modern setting Jonah Walker The scenes are linked and interspersed by the very lovely peripatetic flute playing of Julia Gibb, with music composed by one of the Progresss resident music masters, Peter Charles.

These anachronisms are funny, but they’re also disorienting; Trépanier wants the audience to “feel like they’re in a world which they once understood, but has since been subverted – which is essentially what the characters are feeling as well”. The production team have expanded on this anachronistic aesthetic by mixing the 16th century Italian setting with elements from 1950s post-war Italy. That period, much like the aftermath of Romeo and Juliet’s suicides, is one in which society is supposed to be evolving, yet all the old structures are still in place, and no-one knows quite what they’re supposed to do with themselves any more. As a young actress working in London in the 1970s and 1980s, she was plagued by stage fright and desperate to give up acting. She and her husband Will Knightley had one child, Caleb, and although MacDonald was keen for another baby, they could not afford to expand their family. She turned her attention to writing plays, and her husband made a bet - if she sold a play, they could afford another child. Consequently, MacDonald wrote her first play, When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout (1985). It was a success - and also led to the birth of her daughter, future actress Keira Knightley. She is a Capulet, a cousin of Juliet, and loved Romeo, and ironically is the lady whom Romeo claims to love at the start of his play, though she rejected his every advance.After Juliet | Progress Youth Theatre | Reviewed on: Tuesday 11 March 2008 | Performances run until Saturday 15 March 2008 | Box office: 0118 9606060

Once upon a time in fair Verona, Romeo and Juliet lived, loved and died, leaving in their wake two grieving families and a violent feud only tentatively resolved. So what happened next? I decided to use the text by Brooke that Shakespeare used as his source. After Juliet is a kind of doggerel because it has vitality and there is the potential for mischief in it. It's allowed to make a fool of itself occasionally. It gave me the freedom to leap off from the play and the film. Increasingly I want to write with music and an integral part of After Juliet is the music composed by Caleb Knightley and Adrian Howgate. I could have used a bit more brain, though; “& Juliet” sometimes seems suspicious of its own intelligence, like a nerd invited to the cool kids’ party, only to get drunk and vomit in the pool. Beyond this, the production aspects were variable in effect. Some props – Valentine’s umbrella for example – were well used and added to the piece, but bringing several longswords onto the Corpus stage and actually trying to fight with them was not a wise decision. Lighting and sound were similarly hit and miss. The rain effect was good, until it lasted a few more scenes than necessary (or than made sense, once the action had moved inside), and the crypt sound effect would have added well to the atmosphere, had the silence between loops not broken it. The crypt lighting was more successful, and other changes were effective, but the lighting in other scenes was unnecessary. I am full of admiration for the choreography and the sheer brilliance of the presentation, the set, the lighting and sound superbly contributing to a most atmospheric evening, and I cannot praise those responsible for this too highly. But is this enough? I do not think so, and hope to establish why during the course of this review.As a result, it is difficult for me to dwell on performances, which largely did not arrest us; I do not think this was always the fault of the performers, since I sensed there was a great deal of talent which could not fully blossom within the confines of the production. Some rose above it, however. First and foremost, Robert Drummer as Valentine: here is an assured, stylish, confident actor, with a fine presence and strong natural delivery, who created interest. Josh Duhigg ran him a close second as Benvolio; again, this actor has presence and command - also a stillness of movement and delivery, two valuable assets. Juliet is passionate when she first meets Romeo. She kisses him when they first meet, and later on, in the famous balcony scene, she declares her love for him.

He loves and would perhaps repeat Romeo's folly, but he is more aware of the possible price to pay – nothing is as simple after Romeo and Juliet as it seemed before, the world is greyer, less clear cut. With Shakespeare’s two most famous protagonists dead, playwright Sharman Macdonald shifts the spotlight onto Juliet’s cousin Rosaline, played by a fittingly sardonic Mary Butler. Rosaline, devastated by Romeo’s death (she was his first crush before Juliet entered the picture), seethes with bitter resentment – director Maddy Trépanier highlights the possible feminist readings of her character: Rosaline seems to be saying, “I’m just as crazy, disruptive, neurotic, obsessive, as any man – watch what I can do.” In After Juliet the embargo on weapons is being enforced but the feud between the young Capulets and Montagues is simmering. Rosaline, convinced that there should be fighting, raids the tomb to get the only swords available. Implacable Valentine does the same so that when the new Prince of Cats is elected, ‘the days will breathe again.’ Rosaline forces the Capulets to choose between peace and war. After she is elected Princess of Cats, she fights Valentine with total conviction. However, she is unable to sustain her animosity when Benvolio takes up the fight and simply challenges her to kill him. She is not exactly enthusiastic in response to Benvolio’s passion but at least she takes his hand and promises that, in the spring, she will wear that special green dress that he liked, pale, pale green. Presenter: Oh and an inspired touch! I don’t think anybody saw that shot coming! Super special effects skill from the director there. Well played my son!The two lovers are dead and the Prince has forced peace upon the two households, the Capulets and the Montagues, but as everyone knows too well an enforced truce is barely a truce at all. She is also the author of two novels, The Beast (1986) and Night Night (1988), and wrote the screenplay for Wild Flowers (1989) for Channel 4 Television and the BBC Radio play Sea Urchins (1998). A further radio play, Gladly My Cross Eyed Bear, was broadcast in 1999. She wrote the libretto to Hey Persephone!, performed at Aldeburgh with music by Deirdre Gribbin. Macdonald's daughter Keira Knightley appeared in the Heatham House Youth Centre's NT Connections production, which made the regional finals. [4] West Side Story, which I love, and Romeo and Juliet end on a note of sad optimism. The impression given is that things will change. If only it were that easy. Things don't change because two people have died. There is no death that puts a stop to anything. If the mind is emptied of the preoccupation that has been its obsession, what does the mind turn to? Where does it go? My conclusion is that the itch is still there and, because you can scratch it, you do. There are themes in After Juliet that are germane to how we live today and there is something for performers to bite on. I was profoundly changed by seeing West Side Story when I was young and now I never write without wanting to affect people in some way. I hope that After Juliet opens up discussion. I hope the roughness and rawness of the play will keep people talking, and maybe even laughing, for at least a couple of minutes after the curtain comes down.