Romeo grows up

Feb 2 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal

ROYAL Shakespeare Company boss Michael Boyd tells David Whetstone about the 2009 season of plays in Newcastle, launched today.

FOLLOWING last year's pared down RSC season in Newcastle, amounting to a pair of plays at the Theatre Royal, this autumn will see a much more substantial offering.

Not that last year’s productions of The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew were disappointing. Far from it. The latter, in particular, was right out of the top drawer.

But they did prompt wistful memories of seasons past with productions in three venues, including large scale Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal, works by his contemporaries at the old Playhouse and new plays at the Gulbenkian.

Michael Boyd, the RSC’s artistic director, sounds happy to be talking about a body of work that comes closer to matching the word season.

“We felt it was about time,” says the man who, before he took the RSC top job in 2003, had responsibility for Newcastle’s season, inaugurated with tremendous fanfare in 1977.

This autumn the Stratford-based company will bring As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale and Julius Caesar to the Theatre Royal. There will also be a single performance of a condensed version of The Comedy of Errors aimed at primary school children and done in association with theatre company Told by an Idiot.

Northern Stage will revive Days of Significance, an acclaimed play about war by Roy Williams premiered in Stratford in 2006 and with a London run last year. But ask Michael Boyd what he is most looking forward to and he nominates A Tender Thing, which is to have its world premiere at Northern Stage on October 29.

“Launching a show in Newcastle for the first time and having our Press night in Newcastle is probably what I’m most excited about this season,” he says.

“We did a collaboration with Live Theatre of a Sean O’Brien play a few years ago (Keepers of the Flame, 2003) but it wasn’t part of our year-round repertoire and it was a run just in Newcastle. I think this stands a good chance of being one of the best things we do all year. After Newcastle it will probably reopen the Swan Theatre (closed due to the major rebuild of the adjoining Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford), then play in the London season.”

He describes A Tender Thing as “a remix of Romeo and Juliet using all of Shakespeare’s words, but for a Romeo and Juliet of a certain age. It’s a great love story involving an older couple in a fairly tragic world.”

It will have a cast of two, including Kathryn Hunter as Juliet. Multi-talented, she is also director of the RSC production of Othello at Northern Stage from February 17-21.

“She was playing old ladies when she was in her 20s,” says Michael. “She’s ageless, extraordinary, this diminutive genius who can move effortlessly from playing a 19-year-old to a 79-year-old matron.”

The play – or reworking – is attributed to writer Ben Power, who argues that Romeo and Juliet’s timeless poetry “speaks directly about themes – love, loss, mortality – which transcend the original narrative of teenage love”.

Michael Boyd says it had its genesis at a New York party at the home of Stephen Daldry, director of Billy Elliot. “Michael Gambon was there and we were talking about being too old to play Romeo.” Michael himself is to direct As You Like It, in which girls dress as men and cavort in the Forest of Arden. Samuel Johnson and George Bernard Shaw were not especial fans.

“I love it,” declares Michael. “It has quite a dark element to it. Shakespeare wrote it around the same time as Hamlet, and Rosalind (to be played by Katy Stephens) is almost like a female Hamlet, with the difference that she gets her man.

“There are certain constraints in what you can do… But after directing eight history plays, I wanted to get away from blood and battles and fathers killing sons and brothers killing brothers. The idea of spending rehearsal periods talking about love seemed nice.”

Two North East actors join the RSC this season, committing themselves for what could be three years.

Peter Peverley, from Washington, a Northern Stage stalwart famous here for his portrayal of comic Bobby Thompson, plays Dennis in As You Like It and Balthasar in The Comedy of Errors. Paul Hamilton, who grew up at Seaham, County Durham, plays the Sicilian Servant in The Winter’s Tale and a Conspirator in Julius Caesar.

For those relishing a return to the RSC Newcastle seasons of old, Michael warns that 2010 might also be lean (in quantity) because “it will come bang smack in the middle of us moving into our theatre for the first time and a lot of work will have to be done”. The big year is likely to be 2012 when all three theatres in Stratford are back in action and the Olympics are giving everyone a lift.

“We are already talking to Erica (Whyman at Northern Stage) and Max (Roberts at Live Theatre) about collaborations and we would hope to be having more work opening in Newcastle.”