Not often one gets to review a play based entirely on a long-ago Hollywood movie performed by an ‘amateur’ group. (I hate the word amateur, I translate it as “a collection of folk who love acting and performing”). This particular offering has its special mystique. Written originally by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, in the late 1990s, it snagged seven Oscars and nudged out some far more compelling films. Judi Dench got hers for being onscreen less than six minutes. Overall, it was pretty good but, by common consent, not great.

The cultural shift that goes with the piece in its stage incarnation (with plenty of versions to choose from) is significant and does the whole thing a power of good. It sheds the somewhat glossy ‘eye candy’ of the film and makes the characters (and maybe the actors) truly suffer in real time.

The theatre-sports like task is for Shakespeare to shuck his writer’s block and come up with Romeo and Juliet – all while bonking the betrothed leading lady, placating the unpromising cast (who have mainly bought their way in) and staying onside with the blue-nosed authorities. The latter have the epochal performance in their sights for indecency (i.e. fraudulently procuring a woman to play the part of a woman). Little did they know how indecent it really was….

So it’s a mildly daring romance, a trip through the London sewers in a glass-bottomed boat and, above all, a thriller where the time is ticking down and the punishments (which might include a few months in the Tower of London) are compounding. That’s the deal. The cast must needs make the audience share both their own love (of theatre and each other) and acute suffering for their art.

It’s quite a remit. In the event Shakespeare, or Will as he is (not always affectionately) known in the play, presents first as a knockabout figure of fumbling Tudor fun and then as a playwright whose real-life love of a fine lady supplies him with the words to convert his own minor tragedy into a towering dramatic literary tragedy for the ages. His professional rival Christopher (“Kit”) Marlowe supports him mightily. There is much nobility in theatre though none in the nobility.

Wellington Repertory has mounted an impressive production, directed by Ewen Coleman – one where the cast does not have the luxury of expensive sets or the ability to rely on delayed cutaways using a seamless camera. Those living double lives in the plot must work immensely hard to maintain the illusion as the stage setup offers only one option: run like mad while changing costume and hope you don’t trip.

The onstage cast of 26 (plus 5 fine musicians) work many visual wonders. The theatre has been reconfigured to produce a Tudor style space surrounded on three sides by audience. That enables a wide-open space for actors to run and tumble. It accommodates both multiple smaller groups and huge tableaux of people in jaw-dropping arrays of Tudor era costumes to move effortlessly from within the Elizabethan court to, say, a lowlife/lowlight brothel.

The staging price of that is we have only one onstage entranceway, a wide tower/balcony (nudge nudge) with a small arched door at the bottom, and an opposing exit that the theatre audience enters through. That’s it.

People in the centre block see the action side to side and full on. Those on the sides view serried ranks of actors receding into the distance. I am a side viewer and find it surprisingly good. Often one feels part of the crowd action while viewing the stage from immediately next to an actor’s shoulder or peering through a cluster of actors. These viewshafts are often innovative and pleasingly theatrical. Care had gone into planning them, I’m sure. They have a photographic precision.

Given the environmental compromises, the pace of the action is sometimes on the verge of dragging a little. This is more than made up for by the actors. In a supremely well cast show James Kiesel is a powerhouse as top playwright Kit Marlowe. There are many highlights but I will long remember his precisely timed grabbing and guiding of good old Bill to remove him from instant trouble. His semi gymnastic prompting of said Bill in a consequential parodying of the balcony scene will live long in memory. It underlines a nubile creative mind running rings round the slow and ponderous England’s greatest writer; currently resting between quotations.

Will himself is nicely portrayed by Christopher Horne. He must persuade us that his improbable writing malaise is a passing burden but that his deep-down theatrical instincts remain sound. The working title of the play – Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter – is just a short-term aberration. His selling of roles in the forthcoming unwritten play for beer money is reckless (but they all do it) is matched only by his insane courtship of Viola (Yasmine Alani) who is promised to the powerful, if ineffectual, Lord Wessex. Will is saddled with directing the not-yet-available play with a cast resembling Monday morning at the fracture clinic and prone to worse mental blocks than his own – which helps to ramp up the comic tension.

Keeping all these looming fiascos on a knife edge on a wide-open set with no natural hiding places is a challenge to both and they grab it with both hands. Not only are they visibly in love, they can act enough to hold it all together. Yea though the mind may be stumbling a bit, the body is really up for it. Bill and Viola have a fine chemistry between them. They know it cannot be but, trapped in the moment, they will live it deeply together. What they don’t know is the immense contribution this is all making to Western literature.

Their antics are a source of much strong and sincere laughter. With comedy, timing and character must align to produce that elusive true laughter that is both spontaneous yet plot-related.  Another example of this can be found in the character Henslowe who is expertly played by Rio Futschek Ryan. Henslowe is a producer heavily in debt who is yearning to clean up with a hit comedy. Every snatched fragment of the piece of the new play that Will ‘reports’ on convinces Henslowe that the game is up.

The punters will only be laughing at the very idea of the play rather than its contents which appear increasingly dire. After he’s told of the lurid poison-stabbing-driven ending of the pending draft, Henslowe delivers the killer line, “Well, that’ll have them rolling in the aisles,” with a mordant insouciance that convulses the audience. A slow moment is splendidly galvanised and driven forward. Ryan is well practised at this.

Behind these principal actors stand many ranks of experienced thespians who are neatly showcased in their well thought out group curtain calls.  I’m thinking here of Chris Stone as Ned Alleyn, whose swaggering arrogance and stage presence often dominate the scene and make him a great ‘in draft’ Mercutio.

Marjorie McKee, too, performs admirably as the Nurse. She introduces moments of real acting quality like her pensive semi-amused smile on realising what Will and his admirable lady are up to behind the curtain. Also, with the character Wabash, expertly played (among other roles) by Zia Ravenscroft whose stuttering delivery in rehearsal is suddenly supplanted by mysterious oratorical excellence to open the new play. This provokes a cheer from those around me, so invested in Wabash are they. I am cheering inwardly.

This production is a team effort on a grand scale.  However, lighting design is worthy of much praise. It floods the empty space with welcome colour to welcome us in. It picks out key passages with great precision and overall supplies the piece with an expansiveness and sweep that totally belies the actual space. It enables the hustle and crowdedness of Tudor England for the actors to play against. Lighting designer Devon Heaphy (with lighting operator Jan de Gesst) is to be applauded for such ambition.

Mel Heaphy (relation) assists with some sparkling and jolly choreography that evokes Breughel’s people. Musicians Ennis, Dillon, Parker, Dockerty and Young, from keyboard to woodwinds, round off the sound and movement picture with huge and beneficial distinction.  

Equally meritorious are Jamie Byas and Hayley Knight for managing a daunting stage concept and coming up with the goods – in spades. Costume choice and presentation are beautifully envisaged and delivered by Anne de Gaus. It ensures that what could be confusing layers and groupings (as fact, say, melded with imagination of the Montague and Capulet thugs) to be crystal clear, so that we can make instant sense of who is who.

An excellent and satisfying night in theatre. For relative pennies we see what some travelling company might have demanded $150 a seat for. There’s a bit of licensed froth and overshoot but this is no ordinary play. How many brides, when asked to outline the most memorable part of their wedding day, could say, “Playing Juliet in the World premiere of Romeo and Juliet”?

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