Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie Review

Opus Arte moves out of the opera and ballet world and into Shakespeare's Globe Theater with this sometimes surprising 'Romeo and Juliet'.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 5, 2010

Southern Oregon is home to the charming little town of Ashland. Nestled into the foothills of the Rogue River Valley, Ashland actually resembles a European village of sorts, with a quaint Main Street area pretty much the sum total of its marketplace focus. Ashland’s real claim to fame is its long running Shakespeare Festival, which features a beautiful recreation of Shakespeare’s own Globe Theater. I’ve attended several different performances at this Globe, and have found myself transported back to Elizabethan days, when audiences braved the elements (and there are a lot elements in the Pacific Northwest, as there are in merrie old England) to actually take part in a performance in perhaps a much more visceral way than today’s polite, “separated” audiences do, ensconced as they are on the other side of that magical fourth wall. That interaction between audience and actor is fully on display in this 2009 production of Shakespeare’s venerable Romeo and Juliet, performed at the real Globe Theater.

The Capulets and Montagues realize what their conflict has led to.

Relatively modern audiences have had a plethora of star-crossed lovers since the dawn of mass media, some of them woefully long of tooth to be playing teenaged paramours, despite their individual acting chops. That all changed in 1968 with Franco Zeffirelli’s beloved film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, which cast the semi-age appropriate Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting as the doomed pair. Here director Dominic Dromgoole has followed Zeffirelli’s lead and cast two youthful relative unknowns in the title roles, 24 year old Adetomiwa Edun as Romeo and 18 year old Ellie Kendrick (making her professional stage debut) as Juliet. That gamble both pays off and at least partially hobbles this production. While the pair brilliantly embodies the rash impetuosness of youthful lust and love, once the tragedy begins to take a darker turn, neither of the performers quite has the gravitas to fully inhabit Shakespeare’s immortal verse. Edun can come off as too declarative at times, especially with his habit of over-gesturing, which draws attention away from the brilliant dialogue. Kendrick is best in her scenes of conflict, when she is able to rise to the occasion with a certain degree of ferocity. Too often, however, she tends to come off as a neophyte who is struggling to remember all those words, without ever fully understanding their intent or intensity.

The production does a good deal better in a number of other respects. The supporting players, chief among them the wonderful Nurse of Penny Layden, are all superb. Philip Cumbus’ brooding Mercutio is also a standout. While the inchoate use of the Globe’s multi-level playing area makes some of the action’s settings a little hard to understand, there’s also the ingratiating utilization of ontsage musicians (several of whom show up in minor roles), playing and singing some wonderful madrigals to verse by, among others, Walter Raleigh. The fight scenes are staged with a good deal of balletic panache (Edun is quite impressive in these scenes), and the conflict between the elder Montagues and Capulets is also deftly handled. Some viewers may be surprised when, after the tragic denouement, the entire cast (including Romeo and Juliet) and dances a jig, but that’s a longstanding Globe tradition tracing back to actual Elizabethan practice, when even the dourest play was consummated with this sort of “life goes on” celebratory moment.

What impresses most about this production is its straightforward approach to the text and the staging. While it’s true that Edun and Kendrick may not quite be at the level one would hope for, overall this is a presentation thankfully free of directorial conceit, one which honors the timeless verse without any “vision” imposed on it by Dromgoole. What may also come as a surprise to a lot of viewers of this production is how funny it is at times. Yes, funny. Some of that is due to some sexually provocative business (things like “stroking” a sword, for example), but Dromgoole manages to evince quite a bit of humor out of passing lines that, when simply read, may not fully reveal their comedic intent. It proves in a subtle way that Shakespeare, despite his florid language, never lost sight of the fact that he was there to engage and entertain his audience.

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Romeo and Juliet is presented on this Opus Arte Blu-ray with an AVC encode in "live" 1080i and a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This is a splendidly colorful and well detailed Blu-ray, with a gorgeously saturated palette fully on display especially in the lovely costumes. Detail is very impressive in this regard, with everything from the interwoven textures of Romeo's blisteringly red shirt to the drab, everyday workclothes of the Nurse well rendered. It's interesting to note the subtle changes in ambient light as this production wends its way from what appears to be afternoon into dusk. While admittedly minor, these small changes show what brilliant resolution the Blu-ray format can offer, even in terms of minutiae like this. Flesh tones are accurate (there's quite a bit of variety here, from Kendrick's extremely pale skin to Edun's black skin), and no interlacing artifacts were apparent.

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The two lossless tracks provided on this Romeo and Juliet offer a sterling reproduction of the text (as well as the lively accompanying music), without a superabundance of surround activity. While discrete channel effects can be heard when we have actors down left and down right, for example, rear channel effects are limited mostly to the passing audience reaction and the ambient spill of voices and music. This is a clear and well modulated reproduction of a live theatrical performance with no balance issues to report, especially impressive considering the fact that all of these actors are using the old-fashioned "projection" technique without any obvious micing augmenting their voices.

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Opus Arte falls a little short on the supplement side of thing, offering only a Cast Gallery and a Famous Speeches jump-to option. The insert booklet contains an essay as well. It would have been nice to have had a feature on the play and its many productions, or some background on the venerable Bard himself.

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's encouraging to see Opus Arte branching out and beginning to release these Globe Theater productions. While this initial release has a few problems, it still offers a wonderfully vibrant recreation of what an Elizabethan audience may have experienced. Overlook the occasional shortcomings of Edun and Kendrick and the rest of this production is quite engaging.