Ultimately, of course, any production succeeds or fails on the strength of its Romeo and its Juliet. Every director must confront a wellnigh insuperable difficulty: Shakespeare presents not just a tale of young love, but of adolescent love. The two lovers are teenagers, and they speak and act as teenagers; the dramatist left no doubt about this. Originally there was no special problem, since Juliet was played by a young boy, and great care was taken in the training of young performers generally.
In Bandello's novella, Juliet was 18 years old. In Brooke's poem, which was Shakespeare's immediate source, she became 16. The playwright, however, for reasons never convincingly argued, makes Juliet a couple weeks short of her fourteenth birthday, and underlines her age several times. Romeo is some years older, but still an immature teenager.
In modern times, performers almost never acquire the necessary technique and experience to cope with these roles until they have ceased to look the part. Stages have teemed with Romeos and Juliets old enough to be the lovers' parents and even grandparents. Mature-looking players, spouting these lines and perhaps affecting a few adolescent mannerisms, wind up unconvincing and often just plain silly.
Bernard Shaw once saw the two roles played by Esme Percy at 17 and Dorothy Minto at 14, and said the work "for the first time became endurable." And I found a reference to a Pasadena Playhouse production in 1937 with an unidentified Romeo of 16 and Juliet of 14. These players turn out to have been Robert Willey and Anita Denniston--thanks to the Harvard Theatre Collection, which (bless it!) happens to have a playbill of the show in its holdings. The record would seem to go to the celebrated Fay Templeton, who a century ago had played Puck at the age of seven, and did Juliet at nine, opposite Bijou Heron's juvenile Romeo--a production I am just as happy to have missed.
Juliet is the more acute problem of the two, but on rare occasions a teenage actress has conquered the role. The redoubtable Fanny Kemble began a long Shakespearean career with a triumphant debut as Juliet at 19. Adelaide Neilson made her debut in the part at 17 and became the most popular Juliet of the latter half of the 19th century. And in our own century Phyllis Neilson-Terry started playing the role at 18, to wide acclaim.
The current version is the third here at Stratford. The 1959 production's Juliet was Inga Swenson, who was then in her late twenties but did manage to seem consistently adolescent as well as unfailingly musical; her Romeo, however, was deficient. Six seasons later the situation was reversed: Terence Scammell was an absolutely gorgeous Romeo, with an inadequate Juliet. It is the 1965 combination that faces us again this summer.
Roberta Maxwell, who has had considerable Shakespearean experience both here and elsewhere, is a pretty enough Juliet. But she does not make a sufficiently youthful impression. Furthermore, her vocal range is far too narrow for a part that is above all else lyrical and musical to an extreme. And sometimes her pace is too leisurely. She does have two fine moments: in her "Come, night" speech, her anticipation of Romeo's arrival erupts into an unabashedly erotic embracing of her bed; and she effectively manages the psychological changes in her phial soliloquy. On the whole, though, this "fair Juliet" is only fair.
David Birney, a star of that awful TV comedy series Bridget Loves Bernie, is no longer a teenager; but he proves able to act like one throughout the show. His small size is a help here, and he's good-looking to boot. He is as lithe and exhibitionistic as a highschool athlete, easily scaling a locked eight-foot gate, dashing up the wall to Juliet's balcony, and dangling from it by one hand.
There is the ring of truth to his delivery, even when he makes sudden shifts of pitch or volume, along with a host of neat touches, like his affectionate farewell tug at Balthasar's cap near the end. In the tomb, he picks Juliet up from her bier and cradles her body on the floor during his final soliloquy (the finest speech Shakespeare gave him). In a departure from custom, at his last words--"Thus with a kiss I die"--he is able to move forward only part way toward Juliet's lips before he falls back dead, thus showing that the apothecary's drugs not only "are quick" but are a good deal quicker than he expected. To the very end this Romeo lacks the experience to deal with everything that arises. Birney's is a performance of beauty, ardor, and passion. Who would have thought the young man to have had so much blood in him?
For all the play's lyricism and innocence, it is at the same time one of the dirtiest in its diction. It teems with smutty puns that would get the work banned by highschool teachers and boards of education if these folks were really up on their Elizabethan lingo. The bulk of the bawdry issues from the mouths of Mercutio and the Nurse, who are the foils to Romeo and Friar Laurence. Kahn has a lot of the phallic and other ribaldry indicated through gesture or mime.
David Rounds' Mercutio just doesn't cut the mustard. I suppose it's all right for him to be half-sighted, with a black patch over one eye. But he must not talk at half speed; after all, he "will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month." Yet Rounds delivers his delicate and dazzling "Queen Mab" aria in a leaden manner, with lots of pauses. Vivace has become andante. I've said before--and I repeat--that the best guide here is the Queen Mab vocal scherzetto and orchestral scherzo from Berlioz's symphony. Furthermore, for a man who revels so in words, Mercutio should know that "lamentable" is accented on the first syllable. It is a clever idea, though, for his dying curse--"A plague a' both your houses!"--to be treated as an ironic toast, with a raised glass of rose.
Though the part would benefit from a little more coarseness, Kate Reid has the Nurse fully under control. And well she might, for she has been doing the role for at least 14 years. The touchstone remains Dame Edith Evans, however, who polished her interpretation continuously for 36 years. Similarly, Jack Gwillim first played the Friar long ago, and imbues the eccentric cleric with exemplary kindness and geniality.
Michael Levin's Tybalt lacks sufficient fire until he gets to the duel with Romeo, which is fast, furious and fanatical. A cheer for Patrick Crean, who has coached every trace of timidity and amateurism out of all the fencers.
As Romeo's sidekick Benvolio, whom Shakespeare strangely allows to vanish completely from the play at the half-way point, Larry Carpenter lacks naturalness of speech. Theodore Sorel hoots his way through Prince Escalus, Wyman Pendleton is a hoarse Montague, and Donald Warfield's Paris is a proper stuffed shirt.
As Juliet's mother--who, it should be remembered, is herself only 28 years old--Carole Shelley is not yet entirely at ease in her lines; but she looks fine in her red-and-black gown, and her straight back speaks a thousand words. Juliet's father, Lord Capulet, is a man in his sixties. William Larsen, sporting a white beard, makes this well-meaning crank fully human; he does admirably with the blustering scene in which he sputters torrents of monosyllables at his headstrong daughter.
Romeo's servant Balthasar, though seen, has nothing to say until near the play's end, when he comes into his own. Franklyn Seales, a recent Juilliard graduate, brings marked talent to the part. He is a chap who clearly bears watching.