The Stage newspaper today reports that the cast for these two productions will not be having their contracts renewed after January 2001. Both productions have suffered delays and problems. Eighteen months ago the National Theatre launched an ensemble of black and white actors with a Shakespearean study of doomed love. The one actor with the requisite fire is Chiwetel Ejiofor, whose fine Romeo progresses from moping courtly lover to someone spurred by untrammelled sexual desire. He is almost alone in speaking the verse with intelligent feeling but he operates in a vacuum since his Juliet is a foot-stamping Violet Elizabeth Bott and Patrick O'Kane's Mercutio is a Celtic babbler.
Pace is achieved at the expense of clarity.
But the giveaway sign is the way Adrian Lee's ubiquitous music is used to signal emotion in much the same way as a Morricone score in a spaghetti Western. Ronald Pickup's Capulet, for instance, is ramrod stiff. Robert Innes Hopkins' abstract set design, however, is simple, striking and versatile. All in all, this is a production that has plenty of flaws, but, like its hero and heroine, also has enough vitality and intelligence to make it more likeable than not. I don't disbelieve the theatre's denial that the reason for postponing its first night was anxiety at the top, but the evening does have an uncertain, unfocused feel.