Type – Dramatic Comedy
If you liked – Iphegenia in Splott, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Ken Loach films
Romeo and Julie: We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are reaching for the stars
As you can see by the title, Gary Owen’s play draws inspiration and structure from Shakespeare’s famous star-crossed young lovers. In this play Romeo & Julie, The titular characters are relocated from Renaissance Verona to Splott, a working-class suburb of Cardiff in Wales. Instead of ancient feuds, we have something possibly worse that the young people face: corrosive class anxiety, heartless family and the grind of lives lived in poverty.
Romeo, (Romey), is a young father abandoned by the mother of his child, living with his own single mother, eking out a living in a tiny flat. Julie is his opposite, with clear ambitions, sharp intelligence, and hoping to enter the academic world of physics. She’s from the next social echelon: lower middle class with tough jobs, desperate to see their daughter succeed at university. The trials and tribulations of this unlikely pairing of opposites then plays out, in arguably Shakespearean dimensions of tragi-comedy.
Estelle Davis is luminous as Julie, with an inner radiance that brightens the stage. She is totally believable in this role. Alex Kirwan as Romey brings a shambling, self-deprecating charm that covers up surprising moments of deep feeling. The often surprising decisions he makes are also utterly believable. Their chemistry is not the swooning kind, and they portray an authentic attraction with a sense of fun that masks what the audience thinks will be the inevitable tragedy.
The supporting cast are strong and augment the realism. Claudia Barry as Barb, Romey’s alcoholic mother, also directed the play, and she is desolately funny, in a performance of unsentimental precision that made me wish Owen had written a larger part for her. Christopher Stollery and Linda Nicholls-Gidley as Julie’s father and stepmother are devastating in their own way. Out of their depth and feeling pessimistic, their characterisations bring to life the working class people’s fear of an insecure future.
Barrie’s direction keeps the action and character development moving along, even when the script unfortunately has moments where it feels like it’s just treading water. With impressionistic swathes of grey concrete and wire fence stylings, Geita Goarin’s bare set speaks volumes about a place where too many people have too little. There is nothing decorative here, and nothing is wasted.
There seemed to be a few opening nights hiccups with the lighting between scenes, but Topaz Marlay-Cole’s design finds some lovely transcendence in the second act. Josh Anderson’s sound design is cinematic, and provides the right mood for the emotional arc unfolding, although much of the second act has no sound at all, it seems to all be saved up for the final scene.
Owen’s great skill is his ear for the natural rhythms of everyday language, and his ability to construct nuanced characters and plots from deceptively ordinary dialogue. On one end of the Welsh theatrical scale is Dylan Thomas, with the pure poetic beauty of Under Milk Wood; at this end is Owen’s gritty style which yet has its own poetry. He writes in the way that Alan Bennett writes for his Talking Heads series: ordinary people revealing depths of tragedy and heights of joy in plain, colloquial language.
Is ROMEO & JULIE Worth Seeing in SYDNEY?
Romeo & Julie is not quite a tragedy, and it is definitely not a fairytale. It is a meaningful and genuinely moving play, counterpointed with dark comedic moments. Although this play is not a tightly structured as Iphigenia in Splott (recently at Old Fitz), that winds the audience up like a spring, Romeo & Julie is well worth seeing for the marvellous performances of the cast.
Tickets and Practical Info for ROMEO AND JULIE in SYDNEY 🎟️
Presented by Mad March Hare Theatre Co and bAKEHOUSE Theatre Co
KXT Broadway, 181 Broadway, Ultimo
Playing until 23 May 2026
Writer: Gary Owen
Director: Claudia Barrie
Cast: Estelle Davis, Alex Kirwan, Claudia Barrie, Christopher Stollery, Linda Nicholls-Gidley
Set Design: Geita Goarin
Lighting Design: Topaz Marlay-Cole
Costume Design: Dr Emily Brayshaw
Sound Design: Josh Anderson
Assistant Director Josh Anderson
Stage Manager: Olivia Riddell
Accent and Dialect Coach: Linda Nicholls-Gidley
Intimacy Co-ordinator: Shondelle Pratt
Associate Producers: Alex Kirwan and Estelle Davis
