ROMEO
A JULIET
Ballet
Cymru at the Civic Theatre
08.10.16
This
enterprising Newport-based dance company is touring its award winning
Romeo a Juliet round
England and Wales this autumn and winter.
A
young, international cast brings
energy and elegance to the familiar tragedy, set to a reduction of
the Prokofiev score in a recording by Sinfonia Cymru.
The
design, by Georg Meyer-Wiel, uses projection to enhance the depth of
the stage and add interest to the simple white shapes of bed and
balcony. The
costumes, too, are imaginative: monochrome menace for the Capulet
gang, a dash of scarlet for Mercutio, gothic black for the Friar.
Andreamaria
Battaggia makes a boyishly charming Romeo. He has many touching
moments with his Juliet, Gwenllian Davies: the dawn duet, the shared
intimacy of the silken sheets. She brings an awkward tension to her
work with Mark Griffiths' Paris, and at the end, after
a heart-rending pas-de-deux
with Romeo embracing her lifeless form, she crawls over the tomb
which separates them, vainly reaching for a farewell touch.
Excellent
work too from Miguel Fernandes as an
extrovert Mercutio, agile even in his death agony, and from company apprentice Ann Wall as a very
youthful Lady Capulet, haughty on pointe.
Among
the original ideas from choreographers Darius James and Amy Doughty,
clogs to add percussion to the dramatic
Dance of the Knights.
