Romeo & Juliet ... stars of stage and SCREENS
SHOOTING a new film version of Shakespeare’s most i ntimate play, Romeo and Juliet found themselves up against not just their two warring houses, but Perspex screens.
Olivier award-winning star Sam Tutty and his Juliet, Emily Redpath, right, also had to have a Covid test before they kissed. ‘It was really weird,’ 22-year-old Tutty told me. ‘Felt very surreal — and quite illegal!’
‘It was wonderful to be working together in a room at last,’ director Nick Evans said, ‘but frustrating to be working four metres away from Juliet ... and she was four metres away from Romeo,’ or behind a screen.
Restricted by a tight budget, and even tighter safety protocols, the film-making process felt a bit like ‘guerrilla warfare’, Evans quipped. But there were still a few larks to be had.
Tutty plays the title role in Dear Evan Hansen. And one of that show’s most famous numbers is Waving Through A Window.
So Evans would set up the Perspex screen during rehearsals, wave and ‘then start singing Waving Through A Window’. ‘It never got old,’ Tutty said, laughing down the line from Copthorne in West Sussex, where he has been sheltering with his family.
Evans was an associate director on the Billy Elliot musical. I remember when he and choreographer Lynne Page introduced me to Tom Holland, then 12. Holland is now a global star, thanks to Spider-Man — and could well be in the awards season mix for his performance in the Russo Brothers’ film Cherry, out on Apple TV+ next year.
Evans predicted that Tutty’s career will soar, too. ‘This young man is going to do anything that he wants,’ he said confidently.
He was also full of praise for Redpath, who was a member of the Queen Mary University Theatre Company in East London.
The director, along with producers Ryan Metcalfe and Simon Gordon, drew up a highly detailed work schedule, often using green screens so the other actors could be added digitally later. The exceptions were when Romeo and Juliet had to be intimate; and when Romeo held mortally wounded Mercutio (Brandon Bassir). That was the day Evans and the actors involved were tested by a nurse, so they could be up close and personal. Evans pointed out that Shakespeare’s love story is all about physical contact, and the danger it poses. ‘That whole first meeting is about whether they dare touch hands,’ he said, though he stressed this is not a Covid version of Romeo and Juliet. Tutty, meanwhile, told me that, yes, he had been able to kiss Redpath; and cradle the dying Mercutio. But for the fight scene with Tybalt (Sylvester Akinrolabu) he waved his knife at an imaginary foe, who will be green-screened in.
THEfilm was shot in just eight days, though postproduction will take much longer. The movie — whose company also includes Daniel Bowerbank, Jonny Labey, , Helen Anker, Marc Ozall, Lucy Tregear, Vinta Morgan, Jessica Murrain, Claire Cage, Timmy Driscoll, Tats Nyazika, Iskandar Eaton and Ollie Tennant — will be broadcast early next year.