MERCUTIO AND OPHELIA
Fireflood Theatre · Ottawa, Canada
by Nicholas Amott
Drama
Two figures of legend – a swordsman and a maiden – worlds apart in so many ways, have run away from everything they’ve known – before it destroys them. They meet out of chance, in a tavern on the edge of Italy, for the first and only time…
Witness an untold story of love and destiny – and of two people who tried to escape them both.
Tickets are 2 for 1 on opening night.
Deal is only available at the venue, not for advance tickets.
Reviewed by Jamie Portman (the CCC team)
Kudos to Brennan Richardson for a stylish, confident performance in an otherwise unfulfilling play.
The premise is interesting: an encounter between two doomed Shakespearean characters — the swaggering, cynical Mercutio who dies by Tybalt’s sword in Romeo and Juliet, and the suicidal Ophelia in Hamlet. But writer-director Nicholas Amott hasn’t really figured out where to take them. A post-mortality meeting in limbo between their two shades might have yielded something more fruitful, but who knows? Once Amott gets the two of them together, he loses much of his inspiration.
True, much conversation ensues between Ophelia (a pallid Daniella Granzotto) and Richardson’s Mercutio — but it was much ado about nothing, lacking dramatic interest, psychological insight and fidelity to the sensibility of the originals.
Yet. Richardson is always interesting in his portrayal. That’s not because of the script: it’s an actor’s authority at work here — in terms of body language and ease with the slightly stylized dialogue. But, really, what he’s given to work with has little to do with the devil-may-care social subversive who makes such an indelible impact in Shakespeare’s play. We do get a moment of truth when the Bard’s text takes over and Mercutio dies, gasping out a plague on both of Verona’s feuding families; here, Richardson’s work suggests that he would be very good in the actual tragedy.
Apartment613 (apt613.ca) is reviewing all the fringe plays at FullyFringed.ca! You can check out our review of Mercutio and Ophelia here:
http://www.fullyfringed.ca/?p=1327