| "Witty, Gritty, Generous, a Sweet Sorrow All Its Own" |
At the Sherman |
| Four London Critics at "Romeo and Julie"- Sherman Theatre & National Theatre , Dorfman Theatre , March 16, 2023 |
No-one enters a life in the arts in the expectation of comfort. But at times things just work. Gary Owen and Rachel O'Riordan are unlikely to have a time again quite like their creative winter of 2022-2023. 15th December 2022 critic Arifa Akbar ran through her theatrical top ten in a look-back on the year. When she reached number one she wrote: “An incandescent revival of Gary Owen’s monologue, directed by Rachel O’Riordan at Lyric Hammersmith seven years after she staged... ancient Greek tragedy and state-of-the-nation play in one....shattering tale of love, loss and quiet heroism. Powerful and urgent political drama.” Ten weeks later, 21st February, London's critics gathered for a South Bank press night. Over the next two days they let rip their takes on the Wales-England collaboration. The cascade of acclaim was unanimous. The number of strong theatre writers, of insight, stylistic nimbleness and compression, is down to single figures. Journalism costs and the best critics do not write for open access publications. These are extracts from some good ones. * * * * The review by Dominic Maxwell was headed “A modern love story to die for.” “This witty, gritty yet generous rom-com by Gary Owen emits a sweet sorrow that is all its own...As Romy, Callum Scott Howells embodies a kind of rough-hewn yet playful masculinity that is the gatekeeper of his secret sensitivity. It's an entertaining, unsentimental, smartly judged performance. “...What's remarkable about Owen's play is how it is open-eyed about selfishness and deprivation and frustration and selfishness yet fundamentally positive about people. “Barb is weary, alcoholic, outspoken...but too lovingly drawn to a caricature. Julie's parents (Anita Reynolds, Paul Brennen) cut her off but their decency cuts through even when they are at their most hostile. "...Rosie Sheehy triumphs as the self-professed physics prodigy Julie, willing to abandon place at Cambridge to be a young mum with Romy. She is both brilliant and blinkered, adult and child, and Sheehy sells us on her contradictions with extraordinary elan. “It's quite an achievement to blend rom-com froth and kitchen-sink harshness without turning sour or saccharine in the process. Owen's dialogue is acute, funny, knowing but empathetic. “Most important, though, the director Rachel O'Riordan, Owen's frequent collaborator, gets the most lucid, elegantly outsized performances from a fine cast. The scene in which Julie's dad shows her no chink in his armour as he persists in ostracising her but lets the audience see how it much it hurts him is particularly deftly done. Big difficult choices are taken here. “Mistakes are made, sacrifices too, but you you leave with your faith in humanity reinforced than tested.” * * * * Clare Allfree's review was headed “Romeo and Julie: Brave, bold take on the star-cross’d romance.” “Swapping Verona for a bedsit with a pram, Welsh playwright Gary Owen continues to cleverly reframe working-class stories as epic texts...he’s at it again with this equally casual yet gut-punching reconfiguring of Shakespeare’s star-cross’d romance, swapping fair Verona for a cramped bedsit with a pram. “There's no ancient parental grudge, either, only two teenagers divided by their wildly different horizons...The result is a ferociously funny and ultimately hopeful twist on familiar territory- no Edward Bond Saved-style nightmares here, or Shakespearean tragedy come to that- and if it relies on a degree of romcom-style sweetness in order to be so, it's none the less satisfying for that. “Yet Owen displays such deep love for his characters bestowing them with such earthy charisma and iridescent wit it's hard not to fall for them too. Rachel O'Riordan's production is a treat: pin-sharp, and rich with lived-in performances notably from Catrin Aaron as Romy's slyly manipulative single mother whose incisive, waspish outlook is at subtly agonising odds with her self-obliterating alcoholism. The chemistry, meanwhile, between Rosie Sheehy and Callum Scott Howells is electric. “By drawing on canonical tales, Owen has perfected a clever reverse trick: not so much refreshing the classics with a modern twist as reframing working-class stories as epic texts.” * * * * Fiona Mountford's review was headed: “Playwright Gary Owen and director Rachel O’Riordan have produced another riveting collaboration with this tender Welsh spin on the teenage love story.” “The setting is, once again, Splott, a working-class area of Cardiff....Romy is taking a short nap while his baby daughter sleeps. An unwilling single dad, skint and living with his alcoholic mother, he is gradually easing himself into this unexpected caregiving role. The future for him looks grimly predictable whereas for Julie, if she can just keep her head down for a few months more, a place at Cambridge is tantalisingly within reach. “Scott Howells and Sheehy are magnificent and perfectly matched, taking us with them absolutely as their unlikely romance makes an unexpected swerve to the serious. She is all swagger and attitude, he has had his nerves stripped bare by the fatigue of fatherhood, but each offers the other something sincere and profound. “In wildly divergent ways, each longs to compensate for gaps in their own family structure. It is significant that all five actors sit on chairs at the back of the stage when not speaking; there is no escaping this situation for any of them, including Julie’s doting parents who are forced into a high-stakes tough-love gamble. “... As the dramatic noose tightens, O’Riordan’s pitch-perfect production elicits that rare and special silence that suggests an enrapt audience has synchronised its breathing. Owen’s honest and earthy script continues to zing and there is a particularly strong sub-strand concerning the conflict Julie feels about the chance to transcend her working-class origins...different kind of sacrifice beckons for Romeo, and we are left riveted right up to the closing words.” * * * * Sam Marlowe' s review was headed “Sweet and savage working-class love story scintillatingly writes its own rules.” “Gary Owen’s writing has a sweetness and savagery that knocks you sideways. In his latest drama – directed by Rachel O’Riordan, his collaborator on Killology and the shattering Iphigenia in Splott – he’s back among the streets and homes of working-class Cardiff, chasing down diamond-bright beauty and incandescent rage among the overlooked and undervalued....it’s packed with its own poetry, gorgeous as a shimmer of iridescent oil in dirty gutter water. And O’Riordan’s production – lean, unsparing, fizzing with feeling – hits us dead-on in the heart. “...It’s too much” is an expression that recurs in Owen’s vibrant, rhythmic, saltily witty dialogue, among these people whose lives are stretched too thin over too much stress, too much exhaustion, too much making-do, too little money. They almost kill each other with kindness or with love, torn up by the tension between what they want and what they need: for themselves, and for their families. “...O’Riordan directs briskly but with immense compassion, and the acting is faultless: Sheehy’s hungry, tough-talking Julie, as clever as she is naive, and Howells’ shambling but sensitive Romey are devastatingly poignant; so, too, are Aaron’s Barb – a destructive, desolately funny, raddled survivor – and Brennen and Reynolds, their parenting snarled up in their terror of yet more cruel disappointment. “This is, though, also a play full of hope, even joy: a modern subversion of a romantic tragedy that writes its own rules and finds not just a different ending, but new beginnings.” * * * * Extracts cited, with acknowledgments, from the full reviews which can be read at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/romeo-and-julie-review-the-lovers-get-a-witty-gritty-working-class-update-v3962tcp6 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/romeo-julie-national-theatre-review-sins-callum-scott-howells/ https://inews.co.uk/culture/romeo-julie-national-theatre-review-callum-scott-howells-magnificent-skint-cardiff-single-dad-2164882 https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/romeo-and-julie-review-dorfman-theatre-national-theatre-london-callum-scott-howells-rosie-sheehy-rachel-oriordan-gary-owen “Romeo and Julie” continues until 1st April and transfers to the Sherman 13th-29th April |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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