When she was preparing to stage Romeo and Juliet at Canada’s Stratford festival, director Sam White took a research trip to fair Verona. “And I was sort of not impressed,” she says with a laugh, remembering her visit to the Casa di Giulietta with its 20th-century balcony, which has become a popular attraction for romantic tourists. “I thought, the balcony at the Festival theatre is much better than this tiny thing!”
Stratford’s main stage, with its pioneering thrust design, has a formidable balcony that White makes the heart of her tragedy. “I wanted it to be special for Juliet,” she says. “This is the place where I’ve imagined, since she was a little girl, she has always gone for solace and to dream and talk to God.” It is also where the couple, played by Jonathan Mason and Vanessa Sears, consummate their relationship in a sweetly tender moment framed by billowing white curtains. White drew upon two inspirations for the scene: Janet Jackson striding through red drapes to the stage in her music video for If and an Issey Miyake exhibition with “billowing bits of fabric that I thought were really gorgeous”.
