If it’s a whizz-bang high-concept interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s soppiest tearjerkers you want, you might be disappointed by Romeo and Juliet at Maynardville’s outdoor festival this year.

Director Geoffrey Hyland has opted for something altogether stripped down, almost beige. The costumes are neutral, the stage is mostly bare, a couple of the performances fall flat. And yet the story — full of universal truths that echo through the ages — is all there, full of punch.

It’s as though Hyland has pared it down to basics in order to underscore something we’ve forgotten: that, with Shakespeare, less can be more.

Not every production needs to be set in outer space or go in for some clever reimagining in order to trigger those tears and impart deep wisdom. The power is in the fact that, as you sit there in the dark, you must ultimately deal with the realisation that nothing you can do will stop those beautiful young lovers from being dead at the end.

Star-crossed lovers. Nahum Hughes as Romeo and Simone Neethling as Juliet in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Maynardville. Image: Eric Miller

It’s Romeo and Juliet, and there’s barely a soul alive unaware of how the tragedy unfolds. There are countless renditions, of course, that take the story and run off in different directions. In West Side Story, it’s a musical grappling with ethnic tension in Manhattan’s Upper East Side in the 1950s.

And in Baz Luhrmann’s Pop-saturated 1996 film, Romeo + Juliet, the problem of the irrationally instantaneous love affair (between Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio) was to have the teenagers’ first encounter happen under the influence of ecstasy, all the colours bright, everyone glowing and magical and infused with a soundtrack that took your breath away. It was the Summer of Love, after all, and those young lovers fell for one another hard and fast.

But Hyland’s play this year is more reserved, more word-focused, less tricksy. It lets us linger on the deep emotions, makes the feelings between the two main characters come alive, sharpens the electricity between them by urging us to really hear what they have to say to one another.

In many ways, this production surrenders to Shakespeare’s genius. It also, I think, compels the audience to listen, to really listen properly. The audience on the night I watched sat wrapped, only young children occasionally asking their parents to explain. That, I think, is almost a miracle these days, holding the attention of cellphone-addicted humans by helping them savour the sound of someone’s words even when they are speaking in a dialect that today sounds vaguely foreign.

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In a way, it’s an approach to the play that’s an antidote to our culture of ceaseless stimulation. It runs contrary to the high-volume soundtracks of FX-laden Marvel movies and offers something different from the endless supply of “how clever can we be?” Netflix-era entertainments.

Hyland has opted to give credit where credit is due: to champion the Bard and let us savour his words. Because, I presume, he understands that Shakespeare’s poetry, his instinct for a good story, and his timeless humanity, are enough.

Also possible is that Hyland has tapped into the global zeitgeist, giving us a sober — and sobering — look at a story that spins on generational hatred. Romeo and Juliet is, after all, not just about two loved-up teenagers, but about two families that have been conditioned by history to loathe one another.

And that hatred, as Verona’s Prince suggests, is tearing his city apart. In my mind, I could not stop connecting the warring Montagues and Capulets with the threat to global peace currently bubbling up in the Middle East.

And while there is this pervasive heaviness, this sense of doom due to some needless resentment, Hyland also very capably leans into the play’s humour. Hannah Borthwick as Juliet’s nurse is particularly adept at providing comedic relief, something Rehane Abrahams also managed to achieve, albeit through a much darker lens, as a hugely engaging Mercutio.

Hannah Borthwick as Juliet’s Nurse, and Simone Neethling as Juliet in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ currently playing at Maynardville in Cape Town. Image: Eric Miller

Most of all, though, it was Simone Neethling’s Juliet who tore my heart out — in some scenes, she seemed to disappear completely into her character as she channelled some of Shakespeare’s most devastating lines.

Nahum Hughes, in contrast with Neethling’s slightly intellectual Juliet, was full of puppy-dog love, and utterly endearing as Romeo. It made it all the more heartbreaking to watch him get beaten up from within by the consequences of falling in love with the “wrong” person. In one scene that got to me, Romeo skips onto stage, full to bursting with the tenderness of being in love, overcome by that sense that everything in the world can be made right, only to have his sweet innocence ruptured as he stumbles into the terrible battle brewing on the streets, a situation that will see both Mercutio, his dear friend, and Tybalt, the cousin of the girl he loves, dead.

Back to basics. A bare stage and neutral costumes make the words the focus in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Maynardville this year. Image: Eric Miller

Cleo Wesley as Friar Lawrence and Simone Neethling as Juliet in Maynardville’s production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ playing until 24 February. Image: Eric Miller

The production does, however, have a few sticking points. I personally could have done with much shorter fight scenes. The fault seemed to lie in choreography that attempted to emulate the realism of movie brawls but couldn’t quite cut it and then petered out terribly when someone had to die — the lack of blood, given the lengthy build-up, simply underscored the lack of realism, made the fighting a bit cringey.

But then again, this is Shakespeare, so it’s the words that really matter. They could probably have slapped one another to death with a fish and the awfulness of their dying would still have gotten the message across.

Ultimately, my tears and absorption in the story aside, perhaps the most telling sign of the show’s success is the audience’s experience of time’s passage. The play rolls along at a riveting pace, evidence not only of a masterfully crafted story, but of Hyland’s clever compression of the action into something snappy enough to avoid an interval. And intense enough to keep people gripped by a tale most of us know inside out from the start. DM

Romeo and Juliet is part of Cape Town’s annual Maynardville Open-Air Festival happening in Wynberg until 25 February. Performances of Shakespeare’s play continue through to 24 February and the season is interspersed with one-off music events including an evening of opera and a night of musical melodies. Tickets via Quicket.