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‘Romeo and Juliet’ Review: Tom Holland-Led Production Is Hobbled by Director Jamie Lloyd’s Extreme Stylization
Francesca Amewudah-Rivers shines in a production hobbled by director Jamie Lloyd's extreme stylization.
The brightest element comes via video, splashed across a stage-wide screen and shot live via two Steadicams, showing the performers on stage or, as is already a cliché following its much-copied first appearance in Ivo Van Hove’s “Network,” in sequences in which characters are revealed walking from corridors backstage onto the stage or, in this instance, seen coming down from a scene outdoors atop the theater’s roof. This self-conscious banishing of traditional naturalism supposedly to focus upon the text is scarcely a new approach, but given the lack of visual clues or physical manifestation of the relationships, it’s extremely hard to follow either who’s who or the actual plot. Ninety per cent of the play is written in verse but here the rhythm of the lines is completely broken by pauses in which energy and sense are drained away, and meaning is lost.
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