Shakespeare’s R&J: Interview with Julian Curtis & Ben Gerrard

A fresh, new ‘coming-of-age’ version of Romeo and Juliet is presented in ‘Shakespeare’s R&J’ by Joe Calarco. Four boys from a repressive, regimented Catholic boy’s school find themselves immersed in the text of Romeo and Juliet. The boys slyly obtain the play, even though the school has prohibited it, and move us with their eagerness and new ‘learnings’ of Shakespeare’s most famous work. They secretly devour the text and take on the parts of different characters, in the beginning playing the parts fairly tongue-in-cheek, only to discover what lies beneath the words and in the over arching themes of the play.

Some marketing collateral has said the boys are ‘testosterone-pumped’ – on the contrary, I found them funny, endearing and excited to delve into a world they’ve been banned from. These superb actors all hail from NIDA and WAAPA and their performances take us on a journey that opens up a new perspective on an old legendary story.

Prior to the show opening I caught up with two of the actors, Julian Curtis & Ben Gerrard.

Have you worked with this cast before?

BG: We all know each other. Garth was in the same year as me at NIDA so we’ve done a lot of school shows together but this is the first time that any of us have ever worked together.
JC: They’re a really nice bunch of guys, they’re funny, they keep me and I keep them laughing, (laughs) on the road which is nice.

The Director Craig Ilott, what is he like as a director? How does he direct?
BG: He’s hilarious and thorough. You don’t notice the work; it just kind of unfolds and unfolds. You’ll get to a place with him and realize ‘wow’. He just helps create this really beautiful thing.
JC: You (Ben) had that really interesting insight towards the end of rehearsals when you noted that he really hones in on how you need to work and he adapts to the actor.
BG: He works to the individual. With a group of four young actors he is able to identify a different dialogue with each of us.
JC: That’s the dream isn’t it!

Is this play kind of a moveable feast that changes?
BG: Totally, it’s the kind of piece that has to. It has a basic structure and shape. It’s a living animal that needs to change and shift depending on the size of the theatre, size of the audience. Also, regardless of that, it needs to find its new shape when you’re doing so many performances, it can’t just stay ‘stuck’.
JC: It is very structured because it’s very high-concept.

This production also presents to a lot of schools and young people, how do you find presenting to young people?
BG: They’re really vocal, but that can be very fulfilling because you get that instant gratification from feeling them change as the piece unfolds over an hour and a half. They’re initially quite confronted but then by the end of it they’re really consistently drawn in to the love story and what it is these boys have experienced.
JC: That’s really interesting for me because my character is most like that outraged audience, so their journey is my journey. It’s really interesting to play with what that is. So when they’re shocked, I’m usually shocked as well.

Do you think the fact that writer Calarco set the play in a school allows for students to relate to the text of Shakespeare more than they would if it was a traditional production of Romeo and Juliet?
BG: Absolutely, and not just for students though, adults have said the same thing. I think because you’re watching the boys discover the text and the language for the first time and trying to make sense of it, it makes it accessible for everyone else. Trying to get a bit more from it than they would have from previous productions because the boys are treating the language with a bit more care and trying to figure it out as well, which helps the audience come in and do the same thing.
The play begins with an inserted tableau of that repressive Catholic school, so you get a snippet of their life. It’s quite a heightened movement segment. It’s not realistically done but it just sets up that repressive catholic boy’s school. There are also a couple of sonnets that pop up and a speech from Midsummer Night’s Dream that pops up throughout the play. But it’s all Shakespeare, that’s all the boys ever say outside of their class.

Do you think Calarco is interested in making a comment on the Catholic School system and using Romeo and Juliet as a vehicle to do that?
BG: I think he was just trying to find a repressive context. It’s the result that’s more important. It could have been any repressive environment. Craig has mentioned before that it’s about the liberating aspect of literature and the imagination and the power of that. It’s also that ‘rite of passage’, discovering love for the first time. It just happens to be a boy’s boarding school because that’s a good context to put young people in, discovering the language. But it’s not so much a comment on religion or Catholic schools as it is just about any repressive environment and what happens to a person when they can break out of that.

You boys have to take on girls’ roles, how do the young people react to that?
JC: It’s written in a way that there’s a natural build up to it. In the structure of the show, it starts off with the boys making fun of the idea which warms the audience up into thinking ‘Oh yeah, that’s funny’, in that kind of ‘footy show’ kind of vibe and then it drops into a less characterised version and then throughout the show it’s continuously peeled away until at the end you’re not necessarily playing a woman, you’re the student with the soul of that character. It’s quite clever.
BG: The gender becomes irrelevant, the whole male/female thing disappears, especially with the female characters.
JC: There are moments where, through the eyes of the student I play a female character. Ben (who plays Juliet) really plays with that idea of what a student boy imagines a girl doing when she’s in love, it’s really wonderful to watch each night. For me, I’m playing the Nurse who is an older woman so I’m imagining, and I take that from my grandmother or my mother, that would be my reference point.

Because you play several roles in the play, and you have to jump from each different one, have there been challenges with that?
JC: With Shakespeare they tend to say exactly what they’re feeling, but when you add a student world on top of that, you’re suddenly using the language in almost a contemporary subtext. It can be hard to communicate but it can actually be very thrilling to communicate especially when the audience is with you.
BG: It leaves a lot for interpretation. Calarco kept the students very enigmatic; they don’t have any of their own dialogue. They only speak the language of the text (Shakespeare) and so we have to fill out this sub textual story of them ourselves with our own performances. I think that’s fun for both us and the audience. We can fill it out but it’s up to the audience to make their own interpretation as to what is actually going on in these boys’ hearts and minds and between each other.

What’s the set like?
BG/JC: Very minimalist
JC: It’s all about the power of the imagination. So it’s about taking the blank space. The few props that we have are used throughout the show and become everything we need. Craig was very drawn to this piece for that very reason, the idea of the imagination overcoming the obstacles and that being what draws these boys together.

Is it a very physical show?
JC: Yeah, we had a movement coach and a fight instructor.
BG: Because it is so minimal with the props and costumes, we fill it out with that aspect. You really get to appreciate the power of the language. The pyrotechnics are all in that!

What aspects have you found really rewarding?
BG: The best feedback is when students and adults alike tell you that it’s the best version of Romeo and Juliet they’ve seen and that they’ve understood it in a whole new way. I think it’s because of the context of these school boys it heightens the themes that Shakespeare originally intended for the play, that of forbidden love primarily and estranged parent child relationships. In this context with young men all of those (themes) become really palpable and heightened, so you probably feel it a lot more than you do in lavish, traditionalist productions.

On a personal note and away from R&J for a moment, Julian, you were awarded an ArtStart grant, can you tell me a bit about that?
Yeah, I’m really excited about it and it’s essentially a grant which gets arts practitioners to think more business-mindedly about their practice. It’s only just started, I’ve only just received it, so I’m in the process of reaping the benefits of it. It’ll be great this year to see where it can help take me.

Ben, prior to this you’ve been performing as part of Actors at Work with Bell Shakespeare can you shed some light on that experience?
I’ve done lots of Shakespeare now in the last few years; I’ve been touring for the last two years. I feel like that’s really prepped me for a tour like this. With Actors at Work we’re not in theatres with costumes but here with this production we are. Catering to younger audiences teaches you the subtle differences that they require from the performer and the experience of the language, which I’ve absolutely relished.