Miracle on Lusty Glaze Beach - The Newquay Voice

Romeo and Juliet have rarely courted in surroundings as beautiful as Lusty Glaze Beach, but the setting was ideal for the Miracle Theatre Company's thoughtful, funny, and ultimately mournful rendition of the classic tragedy. The theatre group is currently performing at various stunning Cornish locations that include greens, fields, and ampitheatres, but Thursday's sun-kissed performance will surely be remembered as one of the tour's finest.

Effectively using music and a limited but variable set space, the cast of six actors conveyed the ebbs and flows of the script with flair, shifting effortlessly from the comic to the serious and the ecstatic to the tragic. The lovers and their families appeared to live in the 1940s/50s, with guns replacing swords and trilbies replacing traditional Shakespearean garb. With the unusual costumes and two exceedingly well-chosen leads, the performance also succeeded in translating the script into something genuinely relevant for today's postmodern audience, twisting frequent innuendo into the character's musings and lacing the lines with irony.

Of admirable note was the choice to play down the timeless script's most quoted lines, as was the inclusion of its moments of occasionally silent poignancy. The achingly sweet scene when the spellbound couple wordlessly play together after they first make love springs to mind, and contrasted greatly with the overt silliness of the dance sequence at the play's opening.

When the play finally descended to its sorrowful climax, I can honestly say that I was moved. Taking a script by Shakespeare, interpreting it in a unique way, and performing it to a large seaside audience was always going to be a pleasure - making it an important event and wringing emotions from the onlookers was a feat that stepped far beyond expectation. Jonathan Butcher, The Newquay Voice