William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – ASB Waterfront Theatre: July 17, 2025
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been done so many times in so many ways it has almost become a cliché. Almost. Almost. We’ve seen Baz Lurhmann do it as a brawl on Venice Beach, and Leonard Bernstein take it to a Westside Story. I’ve seen many different interpretations myself—but I’ve never seen it done as a zombie flick.
Still, no matter how many times it’s given, it remains hellishly popular! On a cold rainy night, the theatre here was packed half an hour before kick-off. Everyone dressed for a good night. And they’re loving it. I did too, but I fear we were dished up a serving of light entertainment rather than the drama for which many of us would have hoped.
Let’s be fair, it was thrilling. It was fun. We were this close to tears at the climax. And my partner said at the end it was the best she’s felt all week. But this company is billed, and funded, as New Zealand’s top professional theatre company. Tears and a mostly impressive cast should be the bare minimum for a tale so filled with woe. We wanted something more. We —and this goes for a few I chatted with afterwards—we wanted all the meat that the Bard had offered a company, no matter how many times we’ve gnawed on it before. Instead, we were invited to diet.
It started with the end. I mean that quite literally. Director Benjamin Kilby-Henson wanted us to know from the off there would be many ghosts at tonight’s feast, thus we had Juliet’s speech-in-the-tomb delivered as our prologue. So, Tybalt was raised from the dead for us before he was even slain, and Juliet’s innocence was torn from her before she’d even been introduced.
One can take liberties with the text, but It must make sense. There was no Friar John, so the crucial message to Romeo never arrives, let alone never sent. Benvolio kills himself in Mantua, but his body is somehow instantly transported to a tomb in Verona. Friar Lawrence, loved by the whole community, is now seemingly Romeo’s mother, and thus Mrs Montague(?). Not to mention that the wedding at which she secretly officiated (secretly, because if everyone knew about it there’d be no more story to tell) was watched by the whole cast bearing candles.
Hmmm. The play is billed as William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet—but bit by bit the bard’s book is borrowed for something else, for a story with less meaning to impart. With lost plot points and a story played mainly for kicks, drama can too easily fall into melodrama. character quietly slip into caricature.
The cast was impressive. Very. Theo Dāvid, crowd favourite at the famous Polynesian Much Ado About Nothing, gave us an energetic Romeo. Miriama McDowell was a friar with mana—though not one to which a Pope would consent. Ryan Carter’s Mercutio started uncertainly before fully inhabiting his lusting, taunting, hard-living role. Juliet’s mother Beatriz Romilly was asked to play an “evil stepmother” trope, and did. Juliet herself was a little underwhelming, but her Nurse, Courtney Eggleton, was a riot, easily stealing the limelight in the first (often) comedic half. (And like all the characters here, costumier Daniella Salazar had her perfectly outfitted.)
The most powerful character on stage here was, appropriately, Amanda Tito playing Death. Yes: Death. Look in vain for that character in your Folios, but there she was, all Addams Family and the Girl Who Was Death. She was invited to overact, and she revelled in it. It was powerful, and skilfully done, but still more Sunday Horrors than Sunday Theatre.
The stage itself (set design by Dan Williams) was just the right balance of doom and decay and delight. That was well done. But why on earth is Juliet giving theatre’s most famous lines perched atop what looked like a painter’s trolley, when the theatre itself has any number of decent balconies from which to choose? Why Juliet spends so much time draped across a pool table is never fully explained either. (Are we to sense the fates being invoked in the collision of billiard balls? Who knows.) And the choice of a sixties setting did mean that we were treated to knife-fighting rather than swashes being properly buckled around the stage. Those sword fights were missed.
And (a personal beef here) did we really need to have actors being miked up! These are professional actors, able to project a voice. It gave a distance to the performance that wasn’t helpful to it as drama, distracting especially at the intimate moments so important to a play about love! (We wondered if Juliet’s hurried departure at the end was perhaps due to microphone difficulties as she leant in to properly grieve?)
Microphones aside however, the sound design by Robin Kelly—from stealing Prokofiev’s ballet of the play, to the original score he created—was all brilliant. Especially good was the mixture of sound and light (by Rachel Marlow and Bradley Gledhill) to tell us the time of day, so important to the story and done so subtly with birdsong and light tone and colour it almost passed unnoticed. Beautiful.
Reading back, I feel I may be more negative here than the production deserved. But in New Zealand theatre this is the pinnacle, and we should demand the best.
It was a good night at the theatre, so it passed that basic test. It was rousing and rambunctious and laugh-out-loud funny—and there were many moments of pure brilliance. It pulled on nearly as many heartstrings as any light entertainment could.
But I think we were missing something deeper emotionally. And that can be bloody hard to pull off.
Theatre Peter
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Photographs by Andi Crown
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William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet
15 July – 9 August 2025
ASB Waterfront Theatre
Tickets available here
Direction: Benjamin Kilby-Henson
Production Design, Set & Costume: Daniel Williams
Production Design, Lighting: Filament Eleven 11 Rachel Marlow & Bradley Gledhill
Production Design, Costume: Daniella Salazar
Composition & Sound Design: Robin Kelly
Vocal Direction: Cherie Moore
Movement Direction & Engine Room Assistant Director: Katrina George
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For more information and to stay updated on Auckland Theatre Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet visit www.atc.co.nz or @aucklandtheatreco on
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