EUSC's Romeo and Juliet: In Conversation

EUSC, Romeo and Juliet

In anticipation of the Edinburgh University Shakespeare Company's upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet, our Creative Editor Daniel sat down with the Director (Salvador Kent), Producer (Kai Smolin), and Juliet (Anya McChristie) to talk in depth about the creative process behind their production and the timelessness of its themes and messages.

Daniel: So the first question I had was, with a play like Romeo and Juliet, that is so famous and iconic... it says on the website that you're planning to interrogate and boldly reinforce the enduring cultural legacy of the play. Was that more of a challenge or an opportunity for you guys when you were creating this production? How were you aiming to interrogate this cultural legacy?

Kai: I can start. I think the first thing we did, and I think the most important thing that we did in this process, is that we read the text. And we read the text a lot. And what you start to realize - what you realize right away - is that the text and the content of the play are very distinct from the cultural legacy of Romeo and Juliet in pop culture. And it stands in for the love story. And there \[are] all these ideas of \[that] they're fated, and whatever, that surround the play, that people think of when they think of the play, that comes before they interrogate the play. And so what we did is \[that] everything in our show is derived from the text. And we asked ourselves not 'what is the cultural legacy', 'what is the story of Romeo and Juliet that people now believe', but 'what was the story of Romeo and Juliet that Shakespeare was trying to write?'. And what, more importantly, was he trying to make the audience feel in writing it? \[to Salvador] Do you  want to pick up from there?

Salvador: I think a great joy of Shakespeare - and we've talked a lot about this, with various conversations we've had about the play - is that he never went to the city. So you almost have to construct your own Verona, and I think that that's a really cool opportunity. And what that means is whatever you end up constructing is in a completely different world, which operates completely differently, and you have to invent it all the time again, I think. Because it's not as simple as going back to Elizabethan or Jacobean England, and performing it as such. That theater would be so alien, so strange, to us, that it wouldn't resonate with us. So you have this wonderful opportunity where you need to ask loads of questions, like 'How do they dance?' 'How do they move?' 'How do they speak?'. And they're moving, and they're dancing, and they're speaking in all these strange ways. But you have way more creative liberty with a text like this, and I think what's nice is that because it's so iconic, anything you're doing is almost making it new, and subverting it. Because you're doing it against all of these images. It's daunting at first, because you look at all these old productions of it, and it's all these brilliant, brilliant, brilliant figures that have tried these parts. But you can do it in your own small, futile way, and have fun with it.

K: It's similar to translation.

S: Yeah.

D: Thank you. I was actually going to ask, related to what you said about constructing your own Verona, are you planning to set it in a version of Verona or is it a more modern interpretation of \[Verona]? Or is it not a specific setting at all?

S: We started with the idea of saying, 'no setting'. We were just like, 'it's the text'. Because he doesn't give a time period. I think he was probably thinking about the Brooke poem, which seems to be a Machiavellian sort of Italy. You know the Medici? That kind of family. I think that's where he was pulling from, but we were like, we're gonna ignore all that. We're just gonna start from the beginning and think of our own thing. What we ended up with, just because we were pulling things which we found interesting about the play. I think one of the very first things we thought of was that Romeo seems to have this death drive, all throughout it. So I gave him a book of Rimbaud poems, that was my association. But I think that that kind of started to lead this design process because we were like, we're going to put it in a big tomb. So that starts to lead the design process, and what we've ended up with is this French Modernist Verona. I mean, it's still called Verona, and this isn't something that we've told the cast. That was something I was really pernickety about. Because my problem is, let's say that I'd gone in day one, and I'd said, let's do it in a French Modernist Verona... Then, if you're gonna do it well, you need to tell the cast, "Right. You're gonna go look at all of these old French people, and you're gonna work out who they are." So, I didn't want to do that. But we've been able to get to that aesthetic while building our own world with these Elizabethan Shakespearean dynamics, and we've put this design onto it, which works for us. And I think it's going to work for the audience. And \[it] feels universal, and we can play with it. We can pull in Bosch, we can pull in Dalí, we can pull in Rimbaud. We can pull in all these figures that we think the play's speaking, rhyming with, but we can also have just the text setting.

K: Something to add on to that: It is still called Verona, but everything that exists, every creative decision that we've made about the setting, and what it looks like, and when it is, has been because that best serves the themes and the story that we're trying to tell. We had no loyalty to Verona, the actual place that exists. Because Shakespeare had no idea about it.

S: Actually, from a design perspective... I remember having this conversation with Ben, our designer, and it was a great conversation. It was like, I reckon that if we'd been walking around the streets of another city, the design would have looked completely different. Because actually, I think we've pulled from Edinburgh more than we've pulled from Verona. I mean, we looked at Verona, but the way in which we built it is just walking around the Royal Mile. Then he'd point at a window, and he'd be like, 'Oh, it should look like that'. And that's how he built it. So it's a sort of Verona, which is a product of this collective hive mind. This hive mind is pulling from everywhere, but pulling from everywhere to serve the story. That's the whole idea.

K: Yeah. Anya, what's that been like on your end?

Anya: It's been really interesting. I'm quite new to Shakespeare, I never studied it in school, I'd never done it before. You kind of have this idea of Romeo and Juliet in your head. They're more of a pop culture symbol now. All the songs and all the movies and Baz Luhrmann's film. I had this idea of Romeo and Juliet in my head, that I think has really changed in a positive way since doing the show. Because I thought (because it's been done for so long) by doing your own version of it, it had to be different, or there had to be something about it that's like, "Oh, it's set here", or "it's set in a modern day". But I realized the text enough is perfect on its own. So I went to take inspiration from that more than trying to set it on an idea of something. I thought \[that] was really, really, beneficial, and I love the little world that we've created.

D: That sounds really amazing. It sounds like, as well as there being a hive mind, there \[are] some cultural clashes in terms of the setting created, would that would be fair to say? You talked about having Dalí, for instance, as a referenceable, but also having Edinburgh. I just wondered if, for a play with so many contradictions, having that kind of range of inspirations that \[were] potentially contradictory was a deliberate choice?

K: If I can jump in here, I think the point of pulling from these different inspirations and these very specific ways is that the Verona that we built is a Verona where these aren't contradictory, right? Is a Verona where, if you were walking around, all these inspirations would feel unified in the same way that if you walk around Edinburgh, you can name inspirations that have all contributed to the city. In the world that we find ourselves in and the different places that we draw these inspirations from, they might clash, but it's in the way we put them together. That is why we picked them. It's to create a Verona where they can all exist, and where each of them serves a specific creative purpose.

S: Although, it is textually a play about contradictions. And we have been exploring that. I think that that's separate from like these contradictory aesthetics we're pulling from, but yes, it is a play about oppositions. Just to say that.

D: \[to Anya] You talked about being new to Shakespeare, and how that was an interesting process of discovery. I just wondered in playing Juliet, - there's a description on the Instagram page of the play being about wise children \[and] foolish adults. For you, and your interpretation of Juliet, would you say for you \[that] Juliet is a character led by love, or is she led by folly? Is the love story in the centre of this play really the main focus for you?

A: That's a really good question. I feel like, obviously, the love is a huge factor of the play, it's the most historic love story ever. But I more see as means for Juliet to break out of the role that she had in the world that she was in. A thing that we looked at quite a lot was, 'Juliet crumpled'. It's a stage direction in a lot of Juliet's scenes before she meets Romeo, talking about how she's quite depressed, and she's not happy in her life and her family. And I think it's really beautiful to see in the play, the journey that she goes through because of meeting Romeo, the bravery it gives her to realize that she can fight for what she wants, and she can be who she wants to be. I think she's a really determined individual. It's definitely wise children, foolish adults. She can make the decision to forget everything and leave everything behind, her whole family, for this chance of love and a new beginning of happiness. And I love in the play how whenever we do runs, I can actually feel the journey that she goes through and the courage that she builds up to.

D: Cool. Leading on from that, Juliet, breaking free of the world around her is in some ways understood, I feel, differently, with the sometimes forgotten canonical fact that Juliet is 13. I wondered for you, was that something that was difficult to bear in mind, performing from a modern perspective? Was that something that you were thinking about, did it mould how you thought of her experience?

A: Well, in ours, she's 15 or 16, right?

S: So, we talked a lot about this. This was a problem which came up very early on. So, in Brooke's poem, which is the source material, she's 16. Shakespeare lowers her age down to 13. Why? I was like, 'I don't get it!'. The best reason I've come across - and there's various different theories, but this is what we've ran with - is that women in Elizabethan theatre were played by boys, right? And the boys would range between 10 and 14. There was a boy actor who was about 13 around the time that Romeo and Juliet was first performed. And Shakespeare was an actor, he ran an acting company. So the idea is, I think, that he wrote the part for this boy, and he lowered the age to match the age of this boy. And I think that that's what happened. Because of this, when we were going into it, I haven't really thought about it. And the reason why is because I'm working with Anya, who's playing Juliet. So we've worked with something that's worked with us, so it's been this conversation, In the same way that Shakespeare's conversation with this boy would have been this. Is it problematic through a modern lens? Yes, absolutely. But a lot of Elizabethan theatrical conventions would be illegal now. So it's one of those things where, again, Kai mentioned it earlier, this is a huge thing with our production, it's translation. You can't have a 13 year old play Juliet now. That would be completely unacceptable, so you have to translate it. So, we have Anya play Juliet.

K: We were looking for, in that translation, whatever having a 13 year old Juliet would have made that Elizabethan audience feel, we're looking for that feeling. And then we're trying to trace it back. And what does that say? How old does that make our Juliet? And obviously, the answer is not 13. 13 is not sympathy, 13 is horror, like, 'Oh my God!', nowadays. So we're just looking to translate the impact that Shakespeare is trying to have on the audience, as well as everything that Salvador said about working with Anya and the actor. So, I think the final answer is that our Juliet is not 13.

D: Cool. Thank you. It's interesting what you said about working out what that Juliet would have made Shakespeare's audience feel, and then trying to capture that. In terms of the play's costuming and also setting I wanted to ask, in general, about the costuming choices in the play. And then also about specific scenes. I'll start with just asking, generally, what vision were you going for with the costumes?

S: So the costumes are pulled mostly from \[the] 1880s, 1890s. We're allowing ourselves to break rules in that. But some big standout elements of it: The first is, a big thing with the costume was one of the first decisions we made, because we brought Becca on, who's a fight director.

D: Do you wanna give some more context about Becca?

S: Yeah. So, Rebecca Mahar is Shakespeare's PhD scholar, but she also does a lot of intimacy and fight direction for Bedlam. So we brought her on. She was the first person I talked to, pretty much, to start this, because I wanted her on for fights and intimacy. Then she also said, 'well, I'm a PhD scholar, you should have me on as a as a dramaturg as well!'. And we've done lots of theory-heavy rehearsals to start with, which we can talk about later, but a big thing which she said is, 'Well, we actually have the money to get swords for this production'. So we bought - this is also the first thing we bought - we bought six swords. So, all of our costuming choices have been making the swords work, basically. That was decision from the start. So it was like, how can we have this, to me, moody Verona, where the swords still work? And we've ended up in this very long-fitting trenchcoats in the night, it's this city where it's super, super cold at night. But then it's boiling hot in the middle of the day. And that's what its summers are like. You've got these big trenchcoats, but then there \[are] also these evening gowns because there's this massive party in the centre of it. The theme of this party is the Bosch painting, 'The Garden of Earthy Delights'. And we've had 17 masks made for this, which are all pulling from the Garden of Earthly Delights. Et cetera, et cetera. So, all Elizabethan theatres had three planes to them. So the groundlings were Hell, you had the Earth, which was the stage, and then you had a loft space, which was Heaven. So it was Heaven, Earth, and Hell, which means that whenever you're thinking about Elizabethan, Shakespearean plays, they're always thinking about and subverting the interplay between Heaven, Earth, and Hell. And Bosch's painting is a triptych. It's Heaven, Earth, and Hell. So that's why we said the Garden of Earthly Delights, because it's this interplay between these three spaces. And actually, I think that \[for] any Shakespeare play, you need to think really deeply about its theology. There's a lot of theology in this. And the theology, which it's doing is that it's almost quite boldly saying that it's putting Love above God. That's what I think it's doing. Which is crazy, it's blasphemous, especially in Shakespeare's time. But then, you've got to sit with that, you know? You've got to wrestle with it. And that's what it's asking you to do.

D: Interesting. When you say putting love above God... in the play, it uses death as metaphor for love, essentially, but not only a metaphor for love. With the part where it talks about having death as a son-in-law. That's really interesting. I wanted to ask \[about] the difficulty of doing a performance of a play that's so performed, both from perspective of acting and \[directing]. I was going to ask about one scene, the balcony scene. If you don't want to give spoilers, that's fine. I was wondering if, in terms of that being so famous, what was the experience like of trying to perform that and also stage it, and whether \[you had] any thoughts of how to put your own spin on it?

K: I want to say a couple of things, which is that it is a play that is very often performed, but almost all Shakespeare is performed with a 'but', right? This is something we talked about, which is that last year, ShakeSoc did 'Much Ado About Nothing', but it was the music industry. And very often, Shakespeare is transposed, or it's layered over modern settings or modern stories. And so, when we sat down to do Romeo and Juliet, the most important decision you could make is that we're running it without a 'but', right? We're doing Romeo and Juliet, and we're not layering themes. We are diving into the text, and that was a lot of what Salvador and Becca did before rehearsals even started, was rigorous textual analysis, going through and pulling out themes and saying, 'How can we bridge this across the production?'. The other thing I'll say about the balcony scene, as the person who planned the rehearsals is that when we first got started, in the first few weeks when the availabilities were getting a little difficult - I have a scene planned, and it'll be on the calendar for a week, and then someone will be unavailable and I'd look at it, and the only thing we could do is 2.2, which is the balcony scene, and that happened a lot in the first couple months. And so I think it's probably the scene that we've ran the most, easily. And so, we've put a lot of a lot of thought, and a lot of practice into that scene. \[To Anya] What was that like doing that again and again?

A: Before starting the process, I was absolutely terrified. Because I was like, 'This is so much pressure, this is so historic!'. And a girl actually said to me when I got the role, 'Oh, are you nervous that everyone will know if you get something wrong?'. And I was like, 'Now I am! Now I'm terrified!' But going in, it was just the most amazing experience  knowing that this was the text that so many incredible actors have had the chance to work with, and make their own. And it's just one of the most gorgeous scenes ever. So it was really fun. I feel like every time we did it in the first few months, it changed, just a little bit, you know? But I think it was really fun to understand where we were going with it and see what take we were going to have on it, and all collaborate really well to hopefully make a very great scene.

K: It is, I will say. Those 10-15 minutes are probably some of the best in the show. And it's because of how much those performances have had put into them and how much both of the actors put out, to give it 100% every time.

D: That's very exciting. I wanted to ask about something else that is the case with a lot of Shakespeare tragedies, but especially with Romeo and Juliet, which is the interplay between comedy and tragedy, and the tonal whiplash that is throughout the play. I think there are some scholars \[that] say that it starts as a comedy, you can really tell watching it how thin the line between company and tragedy is. And it's almost arbitrary. So I was just wondering in what ways, again, from an acting perspective and a direction perspective, did you lead into those contradictions? Were there any unique ways that you were able to bring them out?

S: I have a lot to say about this, but I want to ask Anya first.

A: I think you'll have a lot of better things to say than me about this, but I think because I was so new to the text, I always just thought of it as a tragedy. I didn't realize how many really comedic, amazing moments there are. Every time it rehearsal. I'm killing myself laughing because there's so much of it. They're so joyous and funny, I think it's done so well, and the shift \[happens] quickly. I think you can really tell when it starts to go more tragic than comedic, but I think we're really lucky as well to have such an incredible set of actors \[we're] working with. They're just so amazing, what they do. I just admire all of them so much, and I think everyone is just so talented, to be able to lean into both sides. And I think they both work.

S: Yes. I agree with all of this. I remember when I've worked on this before, I assistant directed it a few years ago. And our big framework then, \[which] is what I came into this process with, was, 'it is a comedy that turns into a tragedy'. And Mercutio's death is it. But I think that it's actually always flipping between them both the entire time, in this really interesting way. Like, we cut it, but there's a clown scene in Act 4 Scene 5, literally just before the tragic descent. And I remember, I beat myself up with Becca for about a couple weeks at the start of this process, and I was trying to reorganize Act Four and Five. Because what I was saying was, I'm going to do my version. I went into egocentrism, you see. I said, I'm going to do my version, I'm going to turn it into a tragedy, It's going to turn into a tragic descent, it's going to be pure tragedy, it's going to be Greek, right? You can't. It's impossible. What you have to do instead, is you have to realize that what Shakespeare is doing throughout the entire play is that he's dealing with irony. And sometimes the irony is hilarious. We've constructed two clowns and they're in it, and they are literally clowning. I literally tell them to do whatever they want. They can break out of their lines, they can ad-lib with audience \[members], they can do all this stuff. But I think what happens with Mercutio's death - and this is the reason why we do have this - is all the irony in it starts to turn really sinister. There's something very dark in the irony throughout the rest of it, and you could argue that the play's final image - which isn't the final cultural image - so, who plays actual final image is that Montague and Capulet are standing at either side of this tomb and their children are dead. And then Capulet puts out his hand and says, 'Will you forgive me?'. And Montague doesn't take it, and says, 'I'm going to raise up her statue in pure gold'. They continue fighting. So this old play ends on an irony, right? I mean, we decided not to end it on an irony because I just find this love story so profound and so beautiful, and I want to end on the tragedy of this thing. But it is a deeply ironic play. Something which we've talked about a lot is the word 'ambivalent'. It's a deeply ambivalent play, it almost doesn't care what's happening. And that's funny for a little bit, and then it gets really serious. One final nerdy observation, is it was written at the same time as 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Literally concurrently. And I think that that's really interesting, because I think what you have in both is that you have the same kind of mix, except one of them ends with joy, and it ends with a metaplay. And this one ends in this very dark, very unsettling final image. But both are written at the same time. The reason why, if you go to Verona today, on Juliet's window, is written 'the course of true love never did run smooth'. Now, that's from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. That's how close their link is.

D: I didn't know that, that's so interesting. In terms of these ironies, and how they turn sinister, as you say, I was going to ask about the figures of the Nurse and the Friar, that ultimately bring about this death, but \[that] are, nearer the start of the play, comic characters, essentially. And a lot of those comic lines take on a really sinister, as you say, meaning towards the conclusion of the play. Like, 'I need some aqua vitae', from the Nurse. I just wanted to ask about how you want those figures to be perceived in this production?

K: Can I just jump in briefly? I think something interesting that - and please do jump in and add on and correct, but this is just from talking to these actors - that one of the most interesting parts about this process is that these characters come together to make this play, but they are still independent characters with their own motivations, and they're just trying to live their own lives, basically. And so the fact that they come together in this play, the actors weren't thinking about that, right? They're just thinking, 'What is my character? Who am I?', and 'What do I do in the scene?'. And so I think the Nurse and the Clown specifically are characters who start off with a lot of joy. And they have a lot of humour, and they are transformed by the circumstances of the play, I would say.

S: I'm always Inspired by Peter Brook. He talks about how in a Shakespeare play, every single character, from your lead to the servant, is a fully formed human being. So that is something which we've played with a lot. Their conversations are normally stuff like - I think Anya could probably talk more about this - but their conversations and more normally stuff like, 'What have I been doing today?' 'Which street did I take?' 'Why am I here?', et cetera. But I do want to get back to Friar Lawrence and the Nurse, but maybe Anya can talk more about that.

A: Yeah. I mean, I feel like those two characters, they are comedic relief. I think something that I've struggled to deal with - not deal with, that sounds so dramatic! - but as Juliet, those two are the two who betray her the most in the play, when they're supposed to be figures of protection. They're supposed to look after her in both circumstances. I mean, the nurse is like, 'You need to marry Paris, Romeo's better as dead', you know? And then the Friar leaves her... that's not a spoiler, right?

S: It's often cut! I find this weird, and I was gonna cut it. And then I was, like, 'No!', actually, the reason I find it weird is why it needs to stay, which is that she actually gets visited by Friar Lawrence before she kills herself, and I think everybody always forgets this. He literally comes up to her and says, 'Can we get away from here, please?'. And then he doesn't save her. He actually chooses to run away. And to me, that's unforgivable. So that was an interesting thing, and we talked about it a lot. I'm very proud of that.

D: It's interesting that it's often cut. I suppose this is maybe less directly related to the pay itself, but I wanted to ask about \[how] on the play's Instagram and things, the series of photos, and the aesthetic direction of that. I thought they were really cool, especially the one where it's half lit. Romeo and Juliet are not looking at each other in most of them. I just wanted to ask a bit about that. I was \[also] interested by the lines you chose for the captions of each one. For instance, 'Cut him out in little stars'. I just wanted to ask about that.

K: I think I can start. Our core take on the show - if there is to be one - is that the result of the story, the tragedy that befalls them, is not fated, right? It is something that is fundamentally of their desire. Romeo spends the entire play looking for a reason to die, right? Looking for something to die for, looking for an opportunity to do what he does. And so, I think when we were in the photoshoot... we have a few that are them happy together, but I think that's the least interesting part. That's the part where you can imagine Romeo and Juliet, and you can picture it in your head, and it'll be the same. Where we wanted to pull out both characters inner minds, where on Romeo's side, he has found Juliet, but it doesn't fix him. It's exciting, it's riveting, it's something to die for, it's something to devote himself to entirely, but it doesn't stop his desire for death. \[to Salvador] Would you say?

S: Yeah, that's complex. I think he's got a death drive. I think he wants to die from the start. He has premonitions of death. He's constantly dreaming about death. For me, I agree with you, except \[for] the final speech. He barely has any speeches it's so weird, but there's one speech he has, and it's at the top of Act Five Scene One. And he has a dream again, because he's been having dreams since the Queen Mab speech about dying. But in this dream, Juliet comes and kisses him, and then he wants to live again. And it's the first time in which he expresses a desire for life in the play, and then he's told she's dead. So, that's one of the cruelties that this play has. But yes, that's my 'yes, and'.

K: So that's Romeo, and then Juliet even when she's with Romeo, can never quite escape the society and the expectation\[s]. So I think that's what we tried to capture in the photoshoot, which was, the characters are safe with each other, but then each still has their own...it's not all right. They've still got...I don't want to say demons, but they've still got problems, they've still got things haunting them. And that was what we tried to pull out in the photoshoot. And then, I think again, from a marketing perspective, the major theme has been death, has been violence, and keeping it... well, the thing that motivates Romeo to die, and the thing that motivates the characters, is that they live in this fundamentally violent society, right? The play opens on the two houses fighting, and there's all this death. So, I think trying to bring out that these are two characters who are living in a really, really tough time. They're seeing their family members die, they're surrounded by death, and it's not so much that each other is the solution to that, but it's like a beacon in a world of death and darkness, and violence. And so I think pulling that out in the marketing was really important. And again, I think Romeo and Juliet is a play \[where] every line is poetry, right? It's so easy to go through and pull out bits. I think the 'stars' line was something that \[Anya] suggested. And I think it's an interesting narrative thing to underscore, which is that there \[are] moments where they talk about death, and then there \[are] moments where they talk about love into each other, but even the way they do that is like, 'cut him out in stars', right? It's still underscored by this violent society that they can't quite escape.

S: I think Anya has stuff to add about this.

A: I actually was just like, really, really agreeing with everything you were saying! I don't know if I can add anything crazily profound, because that was very well said. But yeah, I just think it was really exciting, I mean, Kai and Elle, our art director, were just insane with what they did. it. And I think it was so exciting to see all of these intentions, and things that we've thought and created to be about the play come through. And we could visualise it, and see it.

K: I think one more thing I'll say is that when we were sitting down to plan out marketing, the first thing that we latched onto was this line, it's in the bio...

S: 'I dreamt my lady came and found me dead'.

K: Yeah. Everything is pulled from that. And that's the line that everything lies on. And I think there \[are] only so many pretty pictures you can have of them kissing and happy, right? It's a play about sad people. It's a play about a sad society. And I think that needs to come across.

A: I also think essentially, sorry to jump on that, that, when we're talking about the love and how there's always like an underscore of death, I feel like a lot of Juliet's begging, loving lines to Romeo do have this, 'Grr!' There's always a kind of violence stuffed up. There's one line, in the balcony scene, actually, where she's talking about \[how] she sees Romeo as a little pet bird that she wants to pet. And he's like, 'oh, I wish I was a bird!', and she's like, 'No, but I'd kill you, because I'd cherish you so much'. It's like their love is so strong, but also, death is always looming.

K: Yeah, and that's the only society they know. That's the only way they know how to love. But I also want to throw credit in here to our incredible photographer, Rae Phillips-Smith, who comes in from out of town, \[she was a] contact I had from a show I worked on before, and she always nails it every single time. And I think her, again, and our art director, Elle Willcocks, were such powerhouse\[s] in this photoshoot that you've seen on Instagram now, and the one that's just starting to come out that we did last week. And it was really one of the most magical shoots I've ever done, because it just came together, and every single shot was better than the last, and everything just worked. And I think I'd be in a lot more trouble if I had to actually advertise the show, but I can just say, 'Look at how gorgeous this photograph is! Come see our show!', and tickets sell.

D: They're very beautiful. Cool. I guess one follow-up, you were talking about how dreams \[are] reference\[d] throughout the text and how that helped inspire the photoshoot. With the context that that \[the play] was written at the same time as 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', I suppose again, comedy bleeding into tragedy, even when it's a moment of high tragedy... For instance, in the 2009 Globe production, it ends after the final scene with like them dancing, and it's a moment of not exactly joy, but after the catharsis, it's like a moment of sort-of comedy. I'm not asking you to spoil the end of it, but I just wondered, just off the back of that whether you wanted there to be a final resounding note at the end of the play of one side winning, if that makes sense, between comedy and tragedy?

S: I don't want to spoil the ending. But I do think that Act 5 is a tragic descent. Other things to pull from that: I love the Elizabethan convention of everybody dancing at the end. We've not done it... I don't know, I was too moody when I was making this. I wasn't in a good enough mood. Actually, wait, I'll tell you this. There's a sound design choice at the moment. It's a very subtle sound design choice. And I've told by sound designer to prepare two versions of it. There's an optimistic sound, and there's a pessimistic sound. And I'm gonna see how I'm feeling on the day.

K: I didn't know that!

S: I didn't know it until three or four days ago! I'll tell you, I'll tell you. It's fun, actually, I'm very happy.

D: Will that set the whole mood for the play?

S: No, it's very subtle. I think it'll come across as sad, but I don't know. Some people might notice. If they notice then, I don't know, they should probably go outside!

D: Fair enough. Thank you so much, guys!

Romeo and Juliet is playing 9-13th February at Pleasance Theatre.