Sound the trumpets upon-Avon, for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is back. After nearly four years and £112.8 million, this gloriously re-thought building forms the centrepiece of the RSC's new Stratford theatre complex.
Using the hugely popular temporary Courtyard Theatre as a prototype, the architects have transformed Elisabeth Scott's looming, booming 1932 barn of a place into an intimate yet spacious venue, seating 1,040 audience members no more than 15 metres from the thrust stage. Gone are the days when generations of schoolchildren, fidgeting in the far-distant punishment seats at the back of the balcony, were put off Shakespeare for life.
A top-notch building will require first-rate creative sorts and newly appointed associate director Rupert Goold is undoubtedly one of those who will shape the vision of the RSC in years to come. It's fitting, then, that his vibrant, vital take on Romeo and Juliet is one of two productions - David Farr' s King Lear is the other - chosen to open the venue.
As we've come to expect from Goold, he enlightens this over-familiar masterpiece with a series of delicate yet inspired touches, highlighting constantly the hurtling sense of rapidly unfolding tragedy. Romeo (nicely brooding Sam Troughton) and Juliet (Mariah Gale) wear modern clothes while everyone else in this secretive, violent Verona is in traditional garb, emphasising the young lovers' alienation.
The always excellent Gale is a delight, twinning a sense of gauche childishness - we first encounter her spinning a toy torch - with burgeoning womanhood. There's a joyful impatience to some of her verse speaking, as if words are all well and good but the presence of her lover would be preferable. The couple's illicit meeting at the Capulets' primal masked ball is a pitch-perfect blend of heightened romance and snogging at the school disco.
This splendid start is exactly what the RST deserves. Let's hope it heralds many years of fine theatre.
In rep until April 2 (0844 800 1110. rsc.org.uk)
Romeo and Juliet
RST
Waterside
Stratford-upon-Avon
Warwickshire
CV37 6BB
