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A self-confessed epic mash up
Romeo and Juliet rehashed 30 years on is full of disparate ideas and feels like a production on steroids, writes SIMON PARSONS
Romeo and Juliet recreated 30 years on, desperate to recapture the past
[Alex Brenner] 
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A Night at the Kabuki
Sadler’s Wells
A FANTASTICAL reworking of Romeo and Juliet set amongst ancient warring Japanese clans accompanied by strains of Queen’s A Night at the Opera is the self confessed epic mash up created by writer and director Hideki Noda.
The two protagonists are recreated 30 years on, desperate to recapture the past, fill in the missing pieces and alter their tragic fate, yet their frequently comic intrusions into the story of their brief love affair inevitably change nothing.
The visual spectacle with spinning beds, stunning costumes, dramatic tableaux and vast floating sheets on a stage of spinning doors set below white battlements and a cast of 26 is truly mesmerising but the overall effect before the interval where the original tale of the star-crossed lovers is rehashed is of a production on steroids. Rarely does the volume dip, movement cease or the rapid Japanese delivery ease up.
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