Broadway’s Romeo & Juliet **
Dir: Don Roy
King. With: Orlando Bloom, Condola Rashad, Christian Camargo. 135 mins. Cert:
PG
As a film, this record of last
year’s starry-eyed Shakespeare-for-kids staging at New York’s Richard Rodgers
Theatre is inevitably limited by the proscenium. As a production, it might have
been rather likable – pacy and scampering, updating the now-standard gangland
setting with EDM and ebony-ivory lovers – were it not for some disastrous
teenbait casting. Though Orlando Bloom displays unexpected dexterity with the
verse, his constant crowd-courting lends Romeo’s every amorous declaration the
sincerity of a bathroom-shot Tinder selfie. We buy that Condola Rashad’s callow
Juliet might fall for this preening oik, but if he showed up under any other
balcony, there wouldn’t be a vat of hot piss big enough.
Broadway's Romeo & Juliet screens in selected cinemas on April 1.
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