Young love as old as hills

Paul Fagamalo is playing Capulet servant Sampson in Romeo and Juliet. Photo / The Aucklander.

Director Willem Wassenaar promises to bring a fresh take on Shakespeare's archetypal romantic tragedy.

Riddiford Laundrette in Wellington's Newtown provides a full laundry service: washing, drying, folding, ironing and, very occasionally, a venue for live theatre.

Willem Wassenaar directed his first New Zealand play at the Riddiford. Called Delicates, it was a site-specific piece about four lost souls airing their innermost secrets as they washed their smalls.

It was well reviewed and - given that only a handful of people could fit into the laundrette at a time - sold out. One night a drunk wandered in and joined in conversations with the cast and audience.

Four years on and Wassenaar, 30, is about to start a new cycle in his career. Colin McColl, artistic director at the Auckland Theatre Company, is putting his trust in Wassenaar and giving him control of the company's latest production, Romeo and Juliet.

It is Wassenaar's directing debut for the ATC and the first time he has directed a professional Shakespeare play. McColl approached him after seeing his production of Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding at Wellington's Circa Theatre last year.

He describes the young director as having a bold vision, an intriguing way of working and someone the ATC should nurture. Wassenaar, in turn, sees the opportunity to work with the country's biggest theatre company as an exciting challenge and a huge adventure.

Originally from the Netherlands, he says for a long time he was scared to direct Shakespeare because of the language. He likens it to a "second language" for most English speakers; let alone for someone whose native language is Dutch.

"I was always hesitant about Shakespeare because I thought, 'Can I do justice to his language?' but then I got a taste for it when two students at my youth theatre company [Long Cloud Youth Theatre] wanted to do a scene from Romeo and Juliet. I suddenly felt strangely liberated."

Inspired to take another look at Shakespeare, Wassenaar began rereading Romeo and Juliet and seeing fresh elements in the text. He promises to bring a new take on a love story as old as the Italian hills, one he says many of us are so familiar with we reference it subconsciously.

"I think this story of two lovers coming from different environments and experiencing obstacles is something which has resulted in a lot of associations for people which they are not even aware of.

"I mean, take the Twilight movies where the girl falls in love with a vampire.

"That is Shakespeare's structure in a modern and more populist form. Romeo and Juliet are the archetypes and are translated into different guises.

"Certain emotions and qualities are attached to their very names.

"Shakespeare asks you to expose yourself totally - emotionally, physically and intellectually - but I was confident I could bring a new reading to the text and create a fresh experience for the audience."

Wassenaar's version of Romeo and Juliet is a memory play where the character Benvolio (Dan Musgrove) acts as a narrator, looking back on his misspent youth and remembering the death of his best friend Romeo (Michael Whalley) and Romeo's young love Juliet (Brooke Williams).

He doesn't want the audience to forget what they know about Romeo and Juliet; rather, he wants to build upon that knowledge and offer a more nuanced interpretation which explores how we construct our identities, the contradictions in our characters and the possibilities for transformation.

He is also acutely interested in how a contemporary perspective can be brought to historical material.

"I am interested in violence as a concept in our world. In Romeo and Juliet, the characters live in a world where they are divided by a family feud. We see in our world ancient grudges and even though we are not aligned with the source or origin of that conflict, we play with it, we assimilate it and often have no sense of the real consequences of the violence it involves."

While Romeo and Juliet is Wassenaar's first Shakespeare, he is no stranger to award-winning theatre.

He arrived in New Zealand 5 years ago to study directing at the New Zealand Drama School, Toi Whakaari, having already completed a master's degree in theatre studies in the Netherlands.

With some Toi Whakaari classmates, including Dan Musgrove, he set up the Almost a Bird Theatre Collective.

From the start, the collective aimed to push the boundaries of modern theatre and explore the role of the past in the present.

Wassenaar has directed a mix of original devised work including Wolf's Lair and Broken China, modern classics such as Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie and more contemporary drama such as Angels in America, for which he won a Chapman Tripp Award for most promising new director.

Romeo and Juliet also stars Stuart Devenie, Gareth Reeves, Geraldine Brophy, Peter Daube, Kip Chapman, Catherine Downes, Benjamin Farry, Elena Stejko and Sam Bunkall.

PERFORMANCE

What: Romeo and Juliet

Where and when: Maidment Theatre, July 22-August 14