(seen at the performance on 21st May 2025)
An angry little bald billionaire prances around the stage, pointing his finger at random dancers, who promptly shrivel and exit in black taxi cabs. Not really, but most people will instantly recognise “Dance of the Knights" from Sergei Prokofiev's sensationally beautiful score.
In fact, Kenneth MacMillan’s choreography does have the men pointing a finger at the ladies several times during the piece; intentional or not, it is mildly amusing.
Back in the real world, there is a reason this MacMillan work has been in repertoire for 60 years.
Without Shakespeare’s words, inner thoughts are revealed through movement. Sarah Lamb’s Juliet really is 14. Rising to En Pointe whenever Paris, the man whom her parents wish her to marry appears, her scurry is heartbreakingly that of a frightened teenager.
It is no wonder Ryoichi Hirano as Romeo is her choice. Stuck between man and boy, Roseline (Tara-Brigitte Bhavnani) rightly and expressively shuns his attentions, unable to allow for his childish side. His enchantment with Juliet is obvious, their work together emotionally attuned - in sharp contrast to unrequited earlier flirting.
Gary Avis and Olivia Cowley as Lord and Lady Capulet are beautifully contrasted. Avis is observant and attentive, there to rationalise. Cowley never fails to carry herself as she feels others expect, turning away her daughter if it might damage the image she wishes to project.
That Nurse (Lara Turk) is able to take care of their daughter in a way the parents cannot is always sad commentary, and Turk’s affection for her charge is clear.
Completing Juliet’s side; as Tybalt, Thomas Whitehead is both loyal and irrational, happy to let the rapier speak for him. For Romeo’s, James Hay’s Mercutio is wittier, but of similar approach. Their major fight scenes are a highlight of the marketplace.
Also a highlight, the three harlots. Meaghan Grace Hinkis, Julia Roscoe and Isabel Lubach amused the monkey highly. Never down, even when Friar Laurence (Philip Mosley) refuses to bless them, a welcome distraction from this tale of woe.
Nicholas Georgiadis produces a magnificent terracotta coloured set of sweeping staircases and secluded columned niches. A vast company fill every inch with too much intrigue to follow every story. There are tristes, arguments, all kinds of intrigue going on behind our famous protagonists.
In sharp contrast with the pretentious Jamie Lloyd production of the play that the monkey endured last June, this ballet never failed to define and follow through each protagonist’s journey, and was certain to jerk a tear as the curtain fell on two lovers, hopes reduced to the slab of a grim mausoleum.
5 stars.