Theatre Review: I Love, Tapac Studio 2

Janet McAllister. Photo / Greg Bowker

This was not "Romeo and Juliet retold" as the publicity would have it, but rather a contemplative abridgement of Shakespeare's play, with an emphasis on the love scenes.

Using Romeo and Juliet as romance archetypes to explore the private world of lovers was an idea with potential, and there was much here which draws near to fulfilling that, although the work was not as experimental as promised.

Tapac Studio 2 is a naturally light and airy space, well chosen to enhance a blissful dreamlike atmosphere, while designer Steve Morrison's deceptively simple set played with perspective: over the oatmeal-coloured rectangle floor he laid a narrower cream "portrait" rectangle at right angles, which stretched up to become the backdrop.

The central, cream-coloured area was Juliet's space, where she waited for Romeo and where he found solace with her, emphasising their love's intense yet quiet core (and the work's unquestioning reiteration of Shakespeare's traditional gender roles).

All Romeo's blustering, robust, manly action - not as important - was shunted to the oatmeal side-stage. It was a device that worked; after slaying Tybalt a shirtless Romeo, covered in sweat, found himself literally shut out from Juliet's purity by an invisible wall.

To cover someone in mad, passionate kisses in a way that is convincing and does not make your audience uncomfortable usually necessitates a paradox: deliberately cultivating a look of complete unselfconsciousness.

Vital to this study of intimacy, it's very difficult and neither Dawn Adams nor Min Kim quite pulled it off, although Kim came close.

But under the direction of Elena Stejko of the Stanislavsky-influenced Auckland Actors Studio, both the Studio graduates were assured in their separate monologues of fear and longing.

A trapeze and ribbon were underused, and the choice of music - Vivaldi's Four Seasons - was rather obvious and lazy for a work which rightly acknowledges the power of music to create atmosphere.

But with wonderfully slow pacing, I Love ran for a nicely judged 45 minutes and allowed its audience to reflect on Shakespeare's lovers, seen in a new light.

THEATRE

What: I Love.

Where: Tapac Studio 2, Motions Rd.

When: Ran until Sunday, March 13.