REVIEW: Romeo and Juliet – The Forum, Malvern Theatres (Two nights – Tuesday, November 12 to Wednesday, November 13).
Showtime! stars rating: * * * * *
IT’S hard to imagine any dance company other than this one performing a more supremely heart-rending, agonisingly beautiful version of the William Shakespeare classic.
Or match it, in fact. For this week we were treated to the welcome return to Malvern of the award-winning Ballet Cymru, a packed auditorium providing ample proof that here we were truly in the presence of breath-taking skills that are plainly powered by the tireless enthusiasm of the dancers.
The music – by Sergei Prokofiev – is perhaps one of the most dramatic compositions ever employed as the soundtrack to the greatest story of love and loss ever told.
Ironically – and shamefully - it is these days probably more associated with the tragedy of a different kind, after being hijacked by moron telly to accompany that festering pile of ritual humiliation and bullying The Apprentice.
Thankfully, all thoughts of simpering, monosyllabic wannabees soon evaporated as this talented cast burst upon the stage, emerging through the mists like savage Germanic tribes falling upon doomed Roman legions.
The opening fight sequences are balletic masterpieces, the swords flashing, parrying, sweeping and crashing together with resounding, metallic cracks. This is the grim reality of the blood feud between the warring Montagues and Capulets, with mindless, brutal gang violence transformed into high art.
These scenes, reprised a number of times during the story, confiscate our senses as the whirling antagonists’ melee becomes a blur of shimmering blades and the lunging and kicking of sworn enemies.
Of course, all this senseless and perpetual hatefulness has dire consequences for all concerned, which means that Mercutio must be killed, soon to be avenged by Romeo with the tit-for-tat slaying of his killer, Tybalt.
It’s at this point that maybe our thoughts turn to present, with knife crime and murder being rife in some areas of our big cities. Nothing changes, does it?
The stars of the show are, of course, the star-crossed lovers themselves, both of whom bring limitless pathos and poignancy to their respective roles, as the depths of their hopelessness and anguish become as bottomless pits of misery.
The death scenes are particularly harrowing, arguably setting a new benchmark for how the climax to this much-performed perennial story should be presented.
This was a stupendous performance from start to finish. Ballet Cymru is a stunningly gifted young company, and so we now look forward to their welcome return to Malvern in the not-too-distant future.
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