Ten minutes to 7 pm and it is already a full house. Four women, clad in trousers and shirts with socks rolled up to their knees, are among the audience, chatting, greeting people, and gently dancing along. “D’ya know who the front seats are for?” one of them asks me. “The posh people? The Queen perhaps, eh?,” she sniggers and hops on to the seat right beside me. Little did the audience know that the very same women, The HandleBards’ all female-troupe, would soon perform a “loose” take on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet ; perhaps one of the most pleasantly silly adaptations that Chennai has ever seen.
Propped on stage are sheets of bright colours that resemble a tent, held up with metal holders. On seeing the shabby set design, one wonders why they have put so little effort on it — but the point is precisely that. The Handlebards is the world’s first cycling theatre company, who travel in bicycles with all the necessary set, props and costumes to perform in different parts of the world. They had toured a little more than 2,414 kilometres around the UK with this production before bringing it to India. Their minimal, yet quirky props resonate with their act, be it the hanging moustache, the unceremonious dagger, the small cushion balls stuck to the groin, that mockingly represent ‘masculinity’ — exaggerated to rightly fit into the bracket of physical comedy; nothing more, nothing less.
CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU, 02/10/2018: Artist performing at the Handlebards theatre performance of Romeo and Juliet at Rani Seethai Hall, Anna Salai. In Chennai on Tuesday. Photo: R. Ravindran.
The ideal love story
In Verona, the Montagues and Capulets are in the throes of a long-running family feud. In the midst of this, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, fall in love. Even though they know their love is forbidden by their family allegiances, they marry in secret in the cell of Friar Lawrence. In a duel, Romeo kills Juliet’s cousin Tybalt, resulting in his banishment from Verona. Juliet feigns her own death to reunite herself with him, but not everything goes according to plan. This is Romeo and Juliet for us — the tragedy of the star-crossed lovers. The HandleBards’ version though, was of a different vigour altogether.
Fraught with slapstick humour, this adaptation showcased physical comedy at its best. Several instances from the play were received with laughter from the audience, solely owing to the physicality of the cast, ranging from a bipolar Juliet to a Romeo, who’s a pretentious cool bloke. As the four-member cast shifted from character to character, the fourth wall was broken often ; they interacted with the audience, sometimes even addressing them by name.
In the last scene, as Romeo consumes poison and dies, Sian Green breaks from the character and says, “Sorry, I have another character to play now,” and runs off leaving her jacket behind.
CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU, 02/10/2018: Artist performing at the Handlebards theatre performance of Romeo and Juliet at Rani Seethai Hall, Anna Salai. In Chennai on Tuesday. Photo: R. Ravindran.
Symbolism galore
For the next few minutes, the jacket represented the dead Romeo. Charlotte Driessler, Eleanor Chaganis, Sian Green and Lucy Green, literally jumped between characters with the change of a robe, a hat or even the window — yes, the same window where Romeo and Juliet’s love blossoms.
The sun and the moon, which often stand witness to their ethereal romance, were personified, so were the birds, and every other element in the play. That too, in the most expressive way possible. The cast effortlessly changed their body language as and when the different characters demanded it.
Lucy Green’s portrayal of the excessively moody Juliet deserves a special mention. The friar’s understudy, played by Charlotte, had the audience in splits as she waltzed silently around the auditorium, spraying holy water on everyone. Interspersed with the bard’s renowned repartees and musical interludes — with a ukulele and mini xylophone in tow — The Handlebard’s Romeo and Juliet invited the audience to contribute as well.
