REVIEW: Romeo and Juliet by Creation Theatre, in partnership with Watford Palace Theatre (Online)

In 2020 Rob Myles curated the complete works of Shakespeare over several months on a weekly basis with actors around the world in their homes (The Show must go Online) and made them available for free on YouTube. It was fascinating to see how their technique evolved and improved using zoom technology over the weeks. Creation Theatre, in partnership with Watford Palace Theatre, have taken this idea a step forward (or perhaps backwards) with their innovative 'choose your own adventure' style adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet directed by Jermyn Street Theatre’s Artistic Associate Natasha Rickman. It proclaims it is “an expansive multi-platform digital production”. In practice, it is a mess and rather like having a nightmare about a drug-fuelled rave with 105 (on this occasion) voyeurs watching.

It is a game of two halves. In the first half, we join the story either as Capulets or Montagues and by the look of it the voyeurs split roughly fifty: fifty as we watch our “House” prepare for the Capulets party where Romeo meets Juliet. Throughout we can see in the zoom windows the other voyeurs, some in masks, as they too try to work out what is going on. 

REVIEW: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Creation Theatre (Online)

Creation Theatre has embraced the digital zoom world that do many of us in the country have found ourselves plunged into during the last nine months of lockdown for work and meeting friends and family as a creative space to innovate and engage with young theatre-makers. It is a new media and a new way to share their work with a wider audience. The latest production is the Wonderful World of Wizard of Oz which runs until the 3rd January and features seventy young actors as the many creatures that Dorothy encounters on her journey. 

On this performance, the audience peaked at 135 including the ten host devices that were starring in or producing the show and despite its running time of over two hours only drifted down to 125 in the second half. It is slightly distracting to have the audience faces in a panel across the top of the screen as the temptation is to look through them to see what they are doing, but at least it gives you the sense of being part of a shared experience even if it is a little bit like watching gogglebox.