Sadie Sink, the breakout star of Stranger Things who’s already a Broadway veteran at 23, is a magnificent Juliet in Robert Icke’s powerful revival of Shakespeare’s tragedy, physically delicate but with a steely passion. She is matched by Noah Jupe, the young British screen talent making an assured stage debut as an impetuous, boyish Romeo. Rarely has the brutal speed of the play’s events, and its juxtaposition of sudden violence and bombshell love, seemed as clear as it does in Icke’s staging.
Here, minutes tick or suddenly speed by on a digital clock that materializes on the set of sliding panels: and there are Sliding Doors moments, signaled by a flashbulb whiteout, where we’re shown how things could have gone differently. A letter arrives on time; Juliet wakes up; or, conversely, Romeo is killed when he first gatecrashes the Capulet party. The young lovers initially seem over-expressive in their dialogue and soliloquies when upended by love; but this is deliberate, a nod to the gush and tug of adolescence that is slowly drained from them both.
There is a strong, sexual vibe from the start, particularly around the more forthright and forward Juliet. The initial confrontation between Capulet and Montagu acolytes is framed as her fevered teenage dream. She is most often seen on the bed that forms the centrepiece of Hildegard Bechtler’s design, barelegged in a virginal white chemise and shorts (at the party scene her crimson cocktail dress is stunning).
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She has an unguarded physical abandon, bouncing exultantly on her mattress or flinging herself at Romeo. After their one night together, her bedclothes are symbolically stained with the blood of her hothead cousin Tybalt (Aruna Jalloh), who he has killed. It’s not just Juliet who’s an object of desire: various young men track her mother (Eden Epstein) and Clare Perkins’ grey-haired, ribald nurse across the dancefloor.
Jupe’s Romeo, himself in a sleeveless, unzipped jerkin, emerges for his first scene from the bottom of her duvet, as if born from her fantasies. He looks bedraggled, like he’s just been rigorously raggled in bed. Romeo’s wingman Mercutio repeatedly drops his trousers and flirtatiously taunts and frots Tybalt into a fury. If Kasper Hilton-Hille somewhat overdoes Mercutio’s manic, unbalanced clowning it makes his sudden death the more shocking.
Inevitably this show raises the question of star casting driving ticket pricing. As I write there is small and fast-dwindling availability for many performances on theatre owner ATG’s website, with tickets for a Thursday night a month after opening from a weirdly precise £87.15 to £253.75. Icke has used famous actors before, most recently Lesley Manville and Mark Strong in his magnificent Oedipus, which wowed London and Broadway and which also featured a ticking clock.
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But the alchemical casting of Sink and Jupe smacks slightly more of the way Jamie Lloyd, this generation’s other great reinventor of classics, uses celebrity to leverage bold and radical productions. Their youthful glamour underscores the sense of two young lives lived brightly but too briefly.
Flash, dazzle and hype are as important to London theatre as the deep understanding of Shakespearean text which Icke, Sink and Jupe so clearly show. And Icke could argue - should he stoop to do so - that he cast Sink for her stage chops (Sink starred in the Broadway revival of Annie aged 11, and was Tony-nominated last year for John Proctor is the Villain), before she enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the latest Spider-Man reboot, whereas Lloyd cast Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland, as his 2024 West End Romeo.
Like Lloyd, Icke is known for his stylistic tropes. This staging features a typically muted colour palette and stark lighting. His ensemble is strong, with Perkins’s Nurse, Clark Gregg’s emotional but menacing Mafia don of a Capulet, and Jamie Ankrah’s dimwit servant Peter throwing new light on lesser roles. Music, so often a loud counterpoint to the action in his shows, is here a muted mix of classical and pop, including a soulful cover of I Don’t Like Mondays.
There is a clever conceit at the end which I won’t spoil. But I will tell you it showcases Sink and Jupe as consummate stage actors as well as hot young stars.
To June 20, haroldpintertheatre.co.uk.
