TheBanyanTree: Me, Romeo and Juliet

[Peter Macinnis]

I suppose I didn't approach the production at the Drama theatre in the 
Sydney Opera House with the right reverent attitudes.  Of course, I am 
rather keen on C. J. Dennis' 'The Sentimental Bloke', written a century 
ago in Australian vernacular--and in particular, the part where they go 
to see said play.  Here's an excerpt:

'Wot's in a name?" she sez. 'Struth, I dunno.
Billo is just as good as Romeo.
She may be Juli—er or Juli—et ——
'E loves 'er yet.
If she's the tart 'e wants, then she's 'is queen,
Names never count ... But ar, I like "Doreen!"

A sweeter, dearer sound I never 'eard;
Ther's music 'angs around that little word,
Doreen! ... But wot was this I starts to say
About the play?
I'm off me beat. But when a bloke's in love
'Is thorts turns 'er way, like a 'omin' dove.

This Romeo 'e's lurkin' wiv a crew ——
A dead tough crowd o' crooks —— called Montague.
'Is cliner's push —— wot's nicknamed Capulet ——
They 'as 'em set.
Fair narks they are, jist like them back—street clicks,
Ixcep' they fights wiv skewers 'stid o' bricks.

***********

That aside, there were warnings in the foyer that there would be bangs' 
flashes, smoking and nudity.  Clearly, this was to be a modern production.

I grimaced slightly at this news, and declared that if Friar Laurence 
got his kit off, I was leaving.  No worries there, it was only R and J 
who disrobed, and they kept their knickers on, mainly because all the 
actors were miked (!!) and they needed somewhere to hide the battery 
pack and transmitter.  Sadly, the microphones did nothing for their 
diction, but that was OK because they were messing about with the script.

Anyhow, it being Grand Final season, when the non-round-ball football 
codes send out their stupidest alpha males to maim each other, and all 
the bogans go mad.  So I asked Chris if we should barrack for the 
Montagues or the Capulets, and then things started to degenerate.

Before the opening, a ladder somehow got involved with a part of the 
audience as it came down off the stage and then back into the wings, and 
I expressed the hope that they would enliven the proceedings by a short 
excerpt from 'Pyramus and Thisbe', re-scored for two choruses, with the 
ladder playing the part of Wall and offering a plethora of chinks.  That 
would have been good, I said, and after, she agreed.

Still, no such luck, but hope springs eternal, and I began to hope for a 
proper pastiche, just after Friar Laurence slipped in one of the sonnets 
(116: "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds ...") as 
the marriage lines.

(I might add that Friar Laurence was depicted in a garden of ferns, 
collecting *flowers*!  Some botanist and druggist he'd be!  Mind you, 
they were probably GM ferns, so I suppose anything's possible.)

Given the sonnet cross-over, I began to hope for a cage fight between 
Macbeth and Macduff (didn't happen), a cream pie fight between Titania 
and Oberon, formation nude bathing in a bird bath by knights in armour, 
a cameo role for Caliban and a kraken (all ditto).  I began to count on 
the return of the ladder to retrieve helium balloons that had escaped in 
the party scene, with Bottom and Falstaff as the retrievers, dancing on 
the ladder to the rock music playing for the party.  Again, no luck, but 
all the party-goers wore white rabbit masks and that was a plus.

You could spot Capulet, though, because he had a greasy pony-tail that 
looked silly at the back of a rabbit.

But at the end, Juliet was still alive, and she had a gun, and 
apparently knew how to use it.  I'm fairly sure that's not how it 
happened in the 1600s.  I hoped she would fire a shot into the fly loft, 
with two rubber chickens falling to the stage, but Paris had used three 
shots to try and kill Romeo, Romeo got the gun and used one to kill 
Paris, and she must have wanted to make every shot count, so no rubber 
chickens.

Still, when a pantomime horse crossed the stage, followed by a hunchback 
crying "A Norse, a Norse, my Kingdom for a Norse", a flood of slaughter 
ran through the theatre when we realised he was doing a Danish accent 
and waving a skull.  We were a sophisticated audience.

Actually, that might not have happened (but it should have), or if it 
did happen, it might have been a flood of laughter that ran: my notes 
are hard to read, and by then I was concentrating on the structure of 
the next book, and trying not to echo 'The Bloke' in the fight scenes:

"Put in the boot!" I sez. "Put in the boot!"
"'Ush!" sez Doreen ... "Shame!" sez some silly coot.


Well might we all say, "Put in the boot" to this performance.  Next 
time, I want a re-run of 'Charley's Aunt'.

peter

-- 
Peter Macinnis, boutique word herder & science gossip,
stand-up chameleon and part-time lay-down misère:
http://oldblockwriter.blogspot.com/