I'm sorry oddsocks. I strongly believe your hearts are in the right place but I just don't get your play. Scathing review follows:
When Juliet implores, 'Romeo Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?'; should the response ever be, 'He's behind you'?
Judging by Oddsocks Theatre Company's pantomime interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, the answer to that is an unequivocal no.
Their interpretation of the timeless Shakespeare play is set in the middle of modern day Italy with plenty of slapstick humour and the warring Montague and Capulet clans depicted as rival restaurant owners.
The audience was drilled right from the beginning by the cast to shout 'pizza' every time the word 'Montague' is spoken, while making a hand gesture at the other side, and at 'Capulet' the remaining half had to shout back 'pasta'.
By the end of a two and a half hour play, that joke was getting old. And so was the fact that in her chavvy portrayal of Juliet, Tanya Huq ended most of her speeches with 'innit'.
No one can deny that there is a lot of humour in Shakespeare's tragic love story but Oddsocks beat out this humour at the cost of every other emotion in the play.
Presumably their aim is to make Shakespeare's play accessible to a younger audience and appealing to families. Certainly, there was a group of primary school children at the theatre who enjoyed the performance immensely.
But should we be so desperate to get younger and younger children interested in Shakespeare's tragedies? After all, Romeo and Juliet is about love, sex, gang war and suicide. It's a bit like trying to make The Godfather suitable for eight year olds.
The passion and energy of Oddsocks theatre company cannot be denied, but numerous issues let the performance down. For example, four songs were inserted into the play and the fact that none of the cast members could really carry a tune made them quite painful.
The phoney Italian accents they adopted were also grating by the end, which was not helped by Neil Craig's Romeo sounding Welsh and Juliet's accent gaining a decidedly Russian twang through the evening.
All in all, Oddsocks' performance at the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth on January 7 really missed the mark. Not only had the raw emotion and tension in the play totally disappeared, but it wasn't that funny either.
Oddsocks also played at the theatre on January 8 and are touring the UK with the production.
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Oddsocks are famous for their comic interpretations of the classics, If you go into the show expecting a serious production of Romeo and Juliet, as the above reviewer seemed to, then you may be disappointed. However, this production never intended to score points for academic interpretation. Oddsocks production is full of inventiveness and humour. Strong performances from all and great comic set pieces - including the funniest exit from stage I've ever seen performed by Father Capulet - make for a great evening's entertainment.
ReplyDelete(Performance at the Arys Theatre, London)