Romeo & Julie by Gary Owen might just be my favorite yet...
National Theatre | Seen March 2, 2023
Last night I trekked to the National Theatre to see my eighteenth show in London so far, Romeo and Julie by Gary Owen, directed by one of Owen’s frequent artistic collaborators, Rachel O’Roirdan. I hastily walked around the corner of the large brutalist building to enter the Dorfman Theatre having not a clue about the play or production, other than what the title would automatically suggest. Two hours and fifteen minutes lapsed, and I exited the Dorfman, hastily walking back around the corner of the big brutalist building once more, still wiping the tears from under my eyes and rushing to get to the National’s bookshop to purchase a copy of the play text. This is the first play text I’ve purchased after seeing a show here because I’ve told myself I won’t buy a million books since I’ll have to ship them home. This one however, I needed to own, and the second I got home from the theatre I cracked it open and got in it with a pencil.
Romeo and Julie as a modern love story “inspired” by Shakespeare’s classic, and I do have to say that while the inspiration is clear in the plot and obviously in the title, that’s where any real similarity stops; this is by no means an adaptation. In Owen’s new Welsh tragicomedy, Romeo, nicknamed “Romy,” is an eighteen year old single dad desperately hanging on to the pieces of his life, still living under his alcoholic mother’s roof. Julie, who grew up just a few streets over but has lived an entirely different life, is climbing any ladder she can to follow her dream of studying physics at Cambridge. Sure, the two teens are from “different worlds", and their love is eventually forbidden by Julie’s mother, but where the real Shakespearen similarity lies is in the poetic, dramatic, passionate first love that sends these two teens’, and their families’, lives into a whirlwind. In some ways it’s a predictable, maybe even “basic” plot, but the performances, writing and direction had me gripped throughout, and took me on an absolute rollercoaster of laughter, disgust, disappointment, joy and at times, utter heartbreak.
I should note that because I purchased a £10 ticket through the National’s 16-25 concession scheme, I had a terrible seat for the first act. I was as gripped by the story and staging as I could be considering I was receiving it all with a massive column in the center of my sightline. So I ended up moving to the center bank during the interval (and thank god I did), but before that, I overheard the conversation of the people seated in front of me in my original seat. They were two, middle-aged, white American couples, and I’m always astounded by the turnout at the British theatre on any given weeknight, but I’m for some reason especially surprised when I see other Americans. So I was sitting there wondering how they ended up there on this Thursday night as they tried to recall the plot of the original R&J when I overheard this bit of dialogue:
MAN: “Well isn’t it true that are there only three plots in real life? Forbidden love, untimely death, and… well, I don’t know? What’s the other?”
WOMAN: “Happily ever after?”
MAN: “No, no one would pay to see that!”
I don’t know what these fours’ ultimate impressions were of the play as I moved seats shortly after overhearing this interaction, but perhaps the point he was making was correct. The stories we have always told and continue to retell are all more or less the same. But what Romeo and Julie does so beautifully is reveal the painful, realistic, complex but simple truths of absolutely normal human life, and all without ever being cliche. It doesn’t ever hit anything too hard on the head, the dialogue is poetic and lyrical while being utterly human and natural, and it’s just so real. It’s real in the way we wish so badly life wasn’t, which is what makes Owen’s writing so masterful. It’s exactly the kind of writing I aspire to create. The play deals with so many things: teenage pregnancy, abortion, class, education, addiction, young love, loss, and the purpose of life. There are lots of plays that try to tackle so many things and fail epically in doing so, but Romeo and Julie reconciles perfectly the nuance of these issues, revealing the ways in which these huge things effect our individual lives. The best way to express this concept is actually to quote directly from the play (good thing I bought the text and have it with me!):
"JULIE: There are two important theories in modern physics. The theory of relativity handles all the big, massive things- stars, galaxies. And then quantum theory deals with all the really tiny things- everything smaller than an atom. And both theories work really well. But they don’t work together. They don’t match up in the middle.
ROMY: Keeps you up at night, does it, worrying about that?
JULIE: Some things are tiny and massive at the same time?
ROMY: Yeah, they are.
This means something for Romy, and Julie can see it means something: but she can’t tell what.”
Like Romy, I don’t understand anything about physics, but I do understand that some things are massive and some things are tiny and it’s a lot harder to identify whatever is in the middle. But that’s what this play does. Tiny things are massive, massive things are tiny, and every character is doing what they can to balance all of that out.
Beyond the impeccable writing, the production is also quite remarkable. In the same “tiny/massive” way, it’s very simple, but with grand moments. The abstract, minimalist set (designed by Hayley Grindle) made up of neon lights of varying shapes and sizes suspended from the ceiling, and only one table, a few chairs, and a baby stroller, perfectly reconciles the many locations the play spans with flair and edge. The actors craft each moment in stunning transitions with simple but beautiful expressive movement (though the loud, harsh sound into each transition was startling). The story never halted for a second, even when the text did, and I never ceased to be hanging on to each moment of the world being created in front of me. Rachel O’Roirdan’s directing is utterly inspirational for this reason; both individual striking moments and stage pictures will stick in my memory, but so will the overall aesthetic and storytelling devices. Callum Scott Howell’s performance as Romeo had me head over heels and heartbroken all at once, and Rose Sheehy’s Julie was spritely and funny, and full of real depth. They are supported by Catrin Aaron as Barb, Romy’s mom, and Paul Brennen and Anita Reynolds as Julie’s parents, who each give compelling individual performances and contribute to the caring, collaborative feel of the cast as an ensemble.
If you charted my life out on paper, it would not look like any of these characters’ lives at all. But the writing of each character and performances from each actor had me feeling completely like this could be my life, and in some ways, like it actually is. In all of them, I saw myself and so many people I know. This play tapped into my empathy and heart in the way I enter every theatre hoping every play will.