Scottish Ballet, under the direction of Christopher Hampson and Oscar Sansom, presents an engrossing dance riff on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The title alludes to Friar Lawrence's warning at the couple's secret wedding ceremony that “these violent delights have violent ends”, suggesting their passion will consume itself in marriage – which proves true, though not in the way he anticipates.
A Radical Compression
The ballet is fierce, athletic, knotty and sensual. It is not a filmed event beneath a proscenium arch but a film that inhabits its own theatrical space. The entire production is a radically impressionistic compression of the play's action, reduced to just 70 minutes, unfolding as an extended nightmarish dream sequence with a repeated, disturbing scene of Juliet being dragged across the grass by an unseen force.
This version discards, among other elements, the balcony scene, and intriguingly modifies the ending, suggesting the double suicide might not be a trick gone wrong but an anguished mutual gesture of despair.
Alienation and Dread
It is only really at the end that Romeo (Ishan Mahabir-Stokes) and Juliet (Kayla-Maree Tarantolo) have much time alone together. From the beginning, Juliet is seen as frustrated and lonely within her family, who try to marry her off to the milksop Paris. At one point, Paris (Yuri Marques) and Lord Capulet (Christopher Akrill) force her into a bizarre, abusive “trust exercise” movement between them. Her nurse (Grace Horler) is dressed in an NHS-style uniform, as if preparing to put Juliet in a psych ward should she defy her parents' wishes.
In her mind, Juliet haunts Romeo's life from the outset, as if in a choreographed trance, while he spends parallel time with his family. She has predicted that he is the man destiny has in store for her. The party scene where they meet is held at a club ominously called the Apothecary, and the dance hums with nervous energy and MDMA excitement, yet the ballet never permits simply euphoric private moments of pure love for the star-crossed leads. They are always entangled with other people, vibrating with suspicion, confronting the future crowding in on them.
A Dark Reading
This is a reading of Romeo and Juliet that focuses on the alienation of love and the brevity of youth: a dark and pessimistic interpretation, performed with vehement commitment and style. These Violent Delights screened at the Edinburgh international film festival and is in UK and Irish cinemas from 21 October.
