It is a competition: Romeo and Juliet by the BRB
Romeo and Juliet
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Sadler’s Wells
Second Circle C32, £18
13 June 2018
Sadler’s Wells page
It’s not a competition, except in the way it is. I can’t help comparing BRB’s performance of MacMillan’s wonderful Romeo and Juliet with those I’ve seen by the Royal Ballet, and the short of it is that BRB’s principal dancers are good and quite different from the RB and everything else is slightly to moderately less good than the RB, some of which I’ll concede may just be due to my familiarity with the latter.
Tyrone Singleton is frankly a beautiful man and a beautiful dancer, a soothing delight to behold. He doesn’t break the mould with Romeo but performs with an easy, care-free charisma mingling into unforced passion that makes perfect sense with the role and the choreography. I think MacMillan suggests quite an uncomplicated Romeo, confident, charming, not at all self-conscious or false, and Singleton provides all this wrapped up in deft grace and faultless partnering.
Jenna Roberts has more to play with in the psychologically heftier role and, while she doesn’t always have the precision or careful line that her RB counterparts might rely upon, she captures completely Juliet’s maturation and development, her vivacity and imagination and determination. Like Singleton she performs with an unforced sincerity and directness, never over-thought or calculated but responding immediately to the character of the steps and the music.
Of the supporting roles I spent as much time as I could swooning over Brandon Lawrence’s legs as Benvolio, and Max Maslen as Mercutio was so technically assured that I only wondered if he was in danger of being too glib. Their trio with Romeo was the best I’ve seen. I enjoyed Feargus Campbell’s irascible Paris – less of a noble wet blanket and more of an ordinarily selfish young man, which is much more like it.
Otherwise the character artists are not ideally cast. The incredibly petite Samara Downs looks much too young and girlish as Lady Capulet, smaller than her daughter and too teeny-tiny to make her grief over Tybalt’s death look more than a strop. Jonathan Payn doesn’t manage to achieve the sinister gravitas Lord Capulet should have, perhaps encumbered by his stupid costume, all of which ends up making him look a bit like Brian Blessed playing a grumpy Father Christmas. Where’s Gary Avis when you need him.
I also realized I’ve been spoilt by the Royal Ballet corps, who it seems effortlessly fill the stage with sometimes hammy but always individual back stories that give the stage a persistent hum of activity, so important in MacMillan’s ensemble scenes. Less well drilled, the BRB artists have a tendency to form a static single line around the action that ossifies the scene and reduces not only its attraction for the eye but its relevance to the drama.
I had an initial frisson of excitement in seeing new set designs by Paul Andrews; I’m not much enamoured of the Nicholas Georgiadis ones for the Royal Ballet, which feel to me heavy and dated. That frisson dissipated quickly as I realized his designs are basically consistent rip-offs of Georgiadis’s, different for difference’s sake and something of a missed opportunity. Finally the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and conductor Paul Murphy gave a shambolic account of the Prokofiev, never outrageous but always mediocre.
So for everything else give me the Royal Ballet; but let me see those leads again.
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