‘Theatre Should Be About the Way We Live Now, Not the Way We Used to Live’. Discuss This Statement, in the Light of the Production You Have Seen, to Show Your Understanding of How You Think the Impact of the Play Has

The performance we saw of Romeo and Juliet directed by Rob Salmon was designed to appeal to a contemporary audience; attempting to show characters that one would expect to see in the local area, a key example of this could be costume worn by Lady Capulet. Throughout the performance Lady Capulet was wearing clothes which could be considered some what provocative, with a very bold leopard print, a statement in society that is often considered to be ‘wild’ and suggestive of being sexually available. This is a major contrast to what an audience would have seen women wearing in the era of the original performance, women were very controlled by society’s standards and revealing merely an ankle would be seen as scandalous. This is clearly an example of theatre moving forward to portray life as it is now in order to connect with the audience rather than looking to the past. The benefit of choosing to alter the characters to fit our local area in my opinion was that it made the performance more accessible and relatable to the audience, which is always something directors and actors should aim to achieve with a performance.
Salmon chose to direct the fight scenes to be rather graphic with lots of naturalistic choreography and using fake blood to accentuate the scene. This something that is much more recent to theatre, in the original performances of this play blood would most likely have been signified with red material and there would have been limited choreography due to the short rehearsal time often given that would result in actors focusing much more on their vocals rather than their physicality. The naturalism that we saw enabled the actors to put across the true nature of the hatred between the two families it also connected with an audience who are flooded with similar stories of violence and death on the news, enabling us to relate with and understand the intensity of the story.
The performance was staged in the town hall, a grand building that could be considered