Romeo & Juliet

A week or so ago to a curiously anonymous version of 'Romeo & Juliet' at the Epsom Playhouse, which was put on by the people at reference 1. A production which was touring the land, with most of the stops being of a couple of nights, but with Epsom only rating the one. And today I failed to recover the timetable.

I thought I knew the play well enough not to bother with any revision, and my only preparation was a snooze in the afternoon, followed by a light meal at 17:00 for the 19:00 start.

Headed off to town in our car, having been warned at the off of trouble in town. Which turned out to mean that a lot of cars were stuck in town as a result of a demonstration by a rather unsavoury crowd of people who might have been from the National Front had it been fifty years ago, demonstrating about an alleged and very serious incident outside a night club a few days previously. It has all gone very quiet, but it is now not clear to me at least whether there actually was any incident of the sort described. Was the whole thing a put-up job? By whom?

As luck would have it though, we were able to get into the NCP car park via Temple Road without too much bother, arriving at the theatre in time to take a beverage beforehand.

After which we learned that we were in for a three hour show, far too long for me these days, with around two hours being the limit of my comfort zone.

A show which seemed more pantomime than play, with pantomime costumes making up for the very light touch staging. The heads of the two families appeared to be missing, leaving the wife of one of them to hold the fort. Benvolio had changed sex. Juliet had been moved from 14 to 18 years old - which seemed odd considering the crudity of much of the dialogue - which I had forgotten about.

The cast were young and enthusiastic but had little or no stage presence. One suspected that they had had little or no training in speaking this kind of stuff. Notwithstanding which, I did pick up a number of famous quotes, for example the one about steerage snapped above, complete with handy translation. Turned up by Bing with no bother at all. The word 'steerage' gets five hits in the archive, one of which is to be found at reference 8, from the far-off days when I was still doing the Horton Clockwise - in which connection I  might say that we went down Horton Lane the other day and the hawthorn was looking well. Something that I still remember from said far-off days.

The audience consisted mostly of school children and the articulate young man sitting next to me explained that it was one of several texts featured in this year's GSCE and that most of those present, including himself, had been sent there by their teachers.

We left at half time. Quite apart from the production, I had decided that I was too old for this sort of thing. The brain could not keep up, not without going in for more preparation than I was likely to manage - despite having no less than two copies of this particular play and a fair number of performances of same under my belt. I associate this morning to my mother telling us about how trips to the theatre to see a show were the culmination of perhaps half a year's worth of classroom preparation by her village college adolescents.

The roads were now clear and we got home without incident. To what I took to be Jupiter and Venus: very bright, fairly low and between south and west.

Home

The archive turned up no less than 17 hits on the clue 'Romeo Juliet'. The first one I try, reference 2, is about the arrival of one of my two copies of the text. Through various other extranea, like cigars, to a real performance at reference 3, from the same camp as that noticed here. There must be a regular production somewhere in there!

I then thought about the length of the play. To find that there was nothing unusual about 3 hours, with the production at reference 4 taking about that. Tempted in passing, but for well over £100 for a decent matinée seat, I passed, at least for now.

I then remembered that length of Shakespeare's plays was something that I had looked into before. But where did I put it?

All the archive turned up were the posts at reference, which did not help much, and I was reduced to going back to basics at reference 6 - complete with the irritating thought that high culture can be acquired, starting from scratch, as a young adult, without having to work at it. Never mind an old adult. High culture written in complicated language drawn from what is, in effect, close to a foreign language, even for English speakers. All part of the something for nothing culture we now seem to live in.

Moans aside, I did extract the snap above, via Excel, Powerpoint and Microsoft's Snipping Tool. Romeo and Juliet very much in the middle of the field.

PS 1: the piece about a luxury cross between a cruise liner and a sailing boat caught my eye this morning at reference 7. A rather gross bit of conspicuous consumption to my mind, one which left me with a bad taste. The world ought to have more worthy things to do with its money - especially on the Lord's Day.

PS 2: A bit later, I relented and tried to book tickets for Romeo & Juliet at the Harold Pinter theatre, the production mentioned above. To be blocked at the mandatory field which wanted my email address. Tried the chat box but that was useless. Didn't seem to be a box office number. Logged out and logged in again. Still no good. Abandoned ship.

References

Reference 1: https://www.nationalproductioncompany.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/air-ambulance.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/03/romeo-alpha.html.

Reference 4: https://www.haroldpintertheatre.co.uk/shows/romeo-and-juliet.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=length+hamlet.

Reference 6: https://nosweatshakespeare.com/list-of-shakespeare-plays/. 

Reference 7: Aboard the Orient Express Corinthian — the world’s biggest sailing ship: Simon Usborne gets a preview of the pioneering superyacht, ahead of its official launch next week - Simon Usborne, Financial Times - 2026.

Reference 8: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/03/but-he-that-hath-steerage-of-my-course.html.