Playhouse Theatre, Sydney Opera House, Saturday 6 December 2025
This Bell Shakespeare production of one of William Shakespeare’s most famous and enduring plays was coming at the end of a five month national tour, having first been conceived in 2023.
I’ve no doubt this influenced certain strategic decisions, including a very minimalist set, a cast of just 10 playing a reduced number of characters, and costume design based on basic black with trimmings.
None of these were bad decisions because it threw everything back on the text and the actors. And I have to say this cast rose to that challenge admirably.
I thought Madeline Li was superb as Juliet. Playing a girl not yet 14, the subject of marriage negotiations by her parents, Li captured the playfulness, wilfulness, and lustfulness of a teenager, and the almost crazed devotion to the young man she falls for.
Ryan Hodson as Romeo left me less convinced. He seemed sulky from the start, supposedly pining for the love of (unseen) Rosaline, spurning attempts by his mates to cheer him up. Why they stuck with him, I don’t know. Neither physically imposing nor particularly charismatic, he spent too much time on the floor, either hiding from his mates or feeling sorry for himself.
When the Montague lads sneak an entry into a party held by the rival Capulet family, Romeo sees Juliet, forgets Rosaline instantly, and declares he’s now REALLY in love. He boldly kisses her. She even more boldly kisses him back, and the teen romance is on.
This all works as teen angst and passion, I just wish Romeo had been a bit more … irresistible. I should mention that Hodson, like some other cast members, was fighting off illness and that might have affected his energy.
James Thomasson as Benvolio made the most of his best mate role with humour and compassion, while Brittany Santariga was an unusual choice to play the hotheaded Mercutio. She carried it off with dash and aplomb, but I’m still wondering why that casting choice was made. Santariga also played the Prince (who tells the whole story in his opening monologue – thanks, Will), and is on stage providing rather beautiful vocal effects later in the play.
Michael Wahr as Capulet and Adinia Wirasti as his wife were solid as, on the one hand proud and doting parents, and on the other schemers with an eye to securing alliances to outdo their hated Montague rivals. They’re complex roles, well played.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that old Montague doesn’t appear in this production, which struck me as odd as so much revolves around the feud between the two houses. I mean, he doesn’t have a lot of lines but he does lose his wife and son as a result of the events, and it’s he who says he’ll build a gold statue to Juliet when the two families finally resolve their differences over their dead children.
Two key roles that do survive (literally), are the Friar, played by Khisraw Jones-Shukoor, and Nurse, played by Merridy Eastman. It’s these two characters who between them enable the secret marriage, the faking of Juliet’s death, the failure of communication with Romeo, and ultimately the death of the teenagers.
They are the two characters with the best intentions toward the lovers yet manufacture the worst outcomes. While the Friar’s earnestness and distress is evident throughout, it’s Eastman who conveys the greatest depth, as Nurse evolves from a loving, funny surrogate mother to her rather shocking advice that Juliet should marry Paris when Romeo is banished.
The aforementioned Paris is the person who Juliet was arranged to marry, against her will. He’s often played as a haughty nobleman who can hardly believe his luck at being offered matrimony with a beautiful young girl. However, Jack Halabi plays him with more subtlety than that, showing a genuine devotion to Juliet that extends beyond her apparent death. An interesting take, and well played.
Lastly, Tom Matthews plays Tybalt, the Capulet cousin who spots Romeo at the party, decides he must uphold the family honour, and seeks out the boy to fight him, resulting in Mercutio’s death and then his own at the hands of Romeo. Matthews plays the role with great physicality, amusedly convinced of his fighting ability and the righteousness of his cause.
The swordplay between Tybalt, Mercutio, and Romeo is very well handled: convincingly dangerous even if necessarily choreographed. All three characters are teenagers and the action conveys the recklessness of youth with weapons in their hands (I couldn’t help but think of the two Sydney 15 year olds in jail over Christmas charged with the stabbing murder of a 17 year old).
As a counterpoint, Romeo’s killing of Paris wasn’t quite so convincing. Paris disturbs Romeo attempting to open Juliet’s tomb, is understandably horrified, and they fight. A short tussle, Paris is stabbed, and dies. Paris is at least in his early 20s, a grown man fighting with a 16 year old. And Romeo is not empassioned in the way he was with Tybalt. Unlikely, I reckon.
Still, that’s not much of a quibble in a story with this many deaths and secrets.
My other quibble is that several of the actors shouted their lines – a lot and loudly, even when not being semi-hysterical. That this was unnecessary in a venue the size of the Playhouse was proven by those who projected rather than shouted. Again, maybe illness played a part and those actors were worried their unwell voices wouldn’t carry.
I did also find the lighting, or lack of it, a bit mystifying. Even given a fair bit happens at night, it often seemed unnecessarily dim, to no great positive effect.
All in all, a very satisfying production of the play Shakespeare was writing when he and his players were performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which Puck ends by telling the audience effectively “If you didn’t think much of this play, wait til you see the next one”.
The cuts to the text and the omission of characters was ultimately well handled (otherwise it would presumably have been even longer than its two and a half hours, including interval). The direction was tight, the blocking used every inch of the stage, and the cast was, on the whole, superb. While the play is called Romeo & Juliet, this production’s emphasis on the Capulets also brought out the truth of the last line,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
