Karen Rutter
Review of the week
The advance rumours were suspiciously PC. Romeo and Juliet set on the Cape Flats, a suitably representative cast – and the tragic convenience of a divided city as subtext.
No matter that director Clare Stopford had previously ferried Shakespeare to a localised environment with much success (her Twelfth Night on the banks of the Breede River), that the province is bursting with far too much talent to ever have to resort to tokenism, and that the fractious nature of our contemporary society is painful fact, not pliable fresco – the sceptics were predicting a Cape Minstrel soundtrack, Pagad costumes and a snoek braai at the Capulets’ house. They saw stereotypes – and they were worried.
Unnecessarily so, it turns out. Maynardville’s showcase for 2000 is as spunky, new and fresh as the century itself, and while its styling is unapologetically indigenous, there is not the slightest whiff of cheesy caricature. Indeed, the combination of Cape youth culture circa now and a 400-year-old script, melded together by a director with an obvious feel for both, is as seamlessly credible as it is exciting.
That the Bard’s work has constantly proved beyond time and geographical barriers is almost too clichd to bring up – but when a team energetically rises to the challenge of grabbing this concept and running with it, taking risks along the way – that’s when we are reminded yet again of the universal brilliance of the repertoire. With this effort the results are a quantum leap away from clich.
And there were risks. The cast is young – very young – which is entirely appropriate to the original setting that featured Romeo and Juliet as beginner-level teenagers, but a dangerous move when a certain professionalism is expected. The Maynardville stage, with nearly half-a- century of solid theatrical tradition on record, is not the Milnerton High School hall, after all. Then too, cultural sensitivities in the Cape (and the country, for that matter) are, well, sensitive. Go for the obvious and one will invariably piss off at least half one’s potential audience. And yet remaining true to the spirit of the script is essential for any interpretation to succeed as spirited.
In her programme notes and in several interviews, Stopford has referred to Romeo and Juliet as a global tragedy which, when staged, “must reflect something about its own time, something about the youth of the day, about the current view of young love”; thus her choice to focus on a Romeo and Juliet of the new South Africa – “dual- cultured, living in hermetically sealed homes, caught between ancient traditions and fast-changing technology, their heritage an unsafe world, their attitude courageous, edgy and cool”. And it works – with maximum input from the very generation she describes so generously.
Maynardville’s tree-shrouded amphitheatre is transformed into a micro-set of diversity – in one corner a holy place of worship where incense burns, in another a petty bourgeois balustrade with fairy lights. A playground with wire-mesh walls occupies a further space, with a mosque’s minaret peeking over the roundabout. Colours are both garish and muted, costumes equally so, from the staid school uniforms initially worn by the central protagonists to the rainbow-hued robes of the famous party scene. The common denominator for both backdrop and wardrobe is that which is known, recognisable. The kids wear designer casuals, the adults conservative ensembles in keeping with their standing.
The feuding families of Montague and Capulet are middle class, comfortable – their homes could be in Rylands Estate. Their children go to “mixed” schools, listen to Sony Walkmen, and have inherited a hatred which they may respond to in Pavlovian outbursts, but which is ultimately not personal.
Which is why Romeo and Juliet, from supposed opposing factions, find it so easy to fall in love, and so difficult to do anything about it, surrounded as they are by prejudices they have no stomach for.
The parallels are unnecessary to spell out – the passion of the players provides all necessary context, their intent unmistakable. And their performances superb. From the bustling bawdiness of June van Merch’s Nurse to the chauvinistic brashness of Royston Stoffel’s head of house Capulet, from Christopher Gxalaba’s slightly slimy Paris to Rajesh Gopie’s brash but doomed Mercutio, Oscar Petersen’s gangsta Tybalt and Blaise Koch’s slo-mo Friar Lawrence in Hare Krishna mode – each character is seized with a zeal that makes being an audience member a demanding job, never knowing which actor to favour with full attention when they’re all together.
And as for the title roles – the ones that make or break this particular play – one can but simply applaud the inspired casting. Rehane Abrahams is bright, feisty, thoroughly modern; Denver Vraagom the perfect foil with his adolescent angst, lithe energy and earnest outbursts. Despite being physically perfect for the parts, they demonstrate a thespian maturity which amazes.
Full marks to Stopford for having the gees to go with this ensemble, and the vision to go full bore with the aesthetics. While Baz Luhrman’s recent cinematic Romeo & Juliet had Leonardo DiCaprio and a Prince soundtrack to boost the hip factor, there is no doubt that scenes such as Stopford’s Capulet soire, with Jazzart jive, Indian dance and pure street acrobatics propelling the action, take the vibe that one step further.
Romeo and Juliet is on at the Maynardville Open Air Theatre, Main Street, Wynberg, until February 26