Romeo and Juliet (but drunk!) review
It was with high hopes that I entered the theatre to see Romeo and Juliet (but drunk!). Drunk Shakespeare, an annual tradition for our university’s theatrical society, is often a high point of the year. I have many fond memories of being a first-year, going to see NUTS’ alcohol-infused rendition of Much Ado About Nothing back in 2023.
In case you haven’t had the pleasure of attending a Drunk Shakespeare performance before, they work as follows: A seemingly ordinary production of a Shakespeare play is put on; the twist, however, is that each night several cast members are selected to drink shots at various times throughout the night, with the rest of the cast attempting to keep the show running despite the chaos caused by their increasingly inebriated comrades.
When done right, it can be an absolute riot. However, the rotating drinks schedule naturally makes each show a wildly variable and individual thing. A night where Romeo and Juliet both drink will be very different to a night where only one of the star-crossed lovers drinks, which will be different again from one where they’re both stone cold sober. That’s part of the magic of Drunk Shakespeare, I suppose; you’re guaranteed a unique experience.
There is an art to planning a Drunk Shakespeare drinking schedule. To ensure that enough scenes feature drunk actors that the comedy flows smoothly, and to make each night different to the last, all whilst protecting your cast’s livers, is a difficult calculus, and one that the team behind this production didn’t quite nail.
I had the misfortune of attending on a night with a particularly poor drinking roster; Lord Capulet (Curtis Green) and Friar Lawerence (Dimitra Mavrocordatos) were the only named characters to be drinking, alongside several ensemble members.
In the case of the ensemble members, the effect of their alcohol consumption was practically invisible. I’m given to understand that in some of NUTS’ past iterations of Drunk Shakespeare, cast members with minor roles didn’t drink at all. I’d argue this is a better approach, but I understand wanting to have a more varied drinking roster.
The golden moments in a Drunk Shakespeare production are always when an inebriated actor, halfway through a Shakespearean monologue, gives up and blurts out whatever drunken thought is currently going through their head. It’s hilarious, but I’m sad to report that on the night I went to see the show, there was only a single one of these moments across the three-hour runtime.
Lord Capulet held his liquor too well to be entertaining, leaving Friar Lawerence the sole source of drunken comedic relief. Even before the alcohol hit, Mavrocordatos was the star of the show, with a magnetism none of the other cast members could match.
With the drunk part of this Drunk Shakespeare show kept to a minimum (on the night I attended, at least), we were left with a bare-bones production of Romeo and Juliet; and not a particularly gripping one.
There were lots of nice individual touches, such as having the Montagues wear blue makeup and the Capulets wear orange, with Friar Lawerence wearing rainbow makeup to signify his role as unifier of the two houses.
And yet, they often felt disconnected from each other. Based on the set design and prop choice, I think the play was supposed to be set in 1980s New York. But the sparse set design left me uncertain.
I’d also like to commend Alex Mouhtouris’ work as the RSA officer giving the cast members their drinks. They would often give dry commentary on the events of the play thus far as they did so, which was delightful.
The greatest issue the play struggled with was pacing. Contemporary Shakespeare adaptations often cut extraneous dialogue to create a more streamlined production than the original script allowed for. Modern audiences don’t really need to hear lengthy comedic asides between musicians that have no bearing on the plot. I’m sure that stuff brought the house down in the 16th century, but it quickly gets tedious today.
Not only was no dialogue cut, but a good chunk was added in the form of one-liners and asides. For all this, the show ran at least half an hour overtime, massively overstaying its welcome.
Overall, the production left me feeling disappointed. I’ve seen firsthand the hilarious chaos these shows can cause, but almost none of it was present in this production. What was left behind was a charming but bloated play, infused with the hollow scent of wasted potential.
A friend of mine attended earlier in the week, on a night when both leads were drinking. They’ve informed me that this provided a “massive boost to the performance”. Apparently the play works far better when viewed through the lens of “two drunk 20-somethings meet at a party and then everything blows up around them”. It’s a shame the drinking schedule meant only a minority of audience members would have gotten the chance to experience this.
