1st October, 2005, Bondi Pavilion
SCGA 2005 National Youth Shakespeare Company

Setting this play - with its somewhat problematic gender politics - in the 1950s, has always made good sense to modern audiences. In SGCA’s production with this year’s National Youth Shakespeare Company, the prosperous suit-clad men – both the fathers and the suitors – presented a smug conservative male-supremacist ideology, against which the play’s young women, Silvia and Julia, were powerless – even though Julia took things into her own hands by disguising herself as a Jules-et-Jim style boy. Diana Denley’s lively production offered supplementary images of other less oppressed young people, enjoying themselves in the café society of an imagined 1950s Paris. Cheeky jive-style dancing and a ‘doo-wop’ chorus of commentating girls, as well as providing roles for the talented movement and music members of this cast, lightened the mood of the play’s tale of agonised teenage love and rebellion and the wrong decisions that so many of us make in that difficult period of our lives. The costume  coding extended to the very effective group of ‘outlaws’ who appear in Act 4; they were to a man – and woman – in the black outfits of beatniks and 50s rebels.

Then there were the servants, Lance and Speed, two of Shakespeare’s funniest clowns created in what may well have been his earliest play. Both fine physical comedians, Speed (Diego Retamales) seemed to have stepped straight out of a French boulevard theatre, and Lance (Damien Strouthos) had the appearance of a down-at-heel M. Hulot. Lance is also the owner of a dog, Crab, played here with charming doggy conviction by James Buckingham. I have seen many different sizes and types of dogs in this role, and they are always funny, simply by the comments that their natural movements make on the tale of woes that constitute Lance’s dialogue. James Buckingham’s Crab clearly knew what his master was saying, and responded to it in a way that a dog might, if it could understand Shakespearean English. And he had some good tricks of his own up his tracksuit sleeve.

This production continued the tradition of excellence that has been established by each year’s National Youth Company. It never fails to amaze me that such a standard, in clear and meaningful speech, characterisation, story-telling, music and movement, can be attained in one short week of committed work. As Diana Denley reminded us in the program notes, this work is actually done in four rehearsal rooms throughout the day, ‘so we are really doing four days of work per day.’ The production team is to be congratulated on the professional ‘boot camp’ that produces such a fine ensemble, performing with such apparent ease. I am pleased to see that some part of this company will be performing at the World Shakespeare Conference in Brisbane in 2006, where I am sure they will delight the gathering of international Shakespeare scholars with the freshness and relevance of their work.

Professor Penny Gay
Department of English
University of Sydney