Shakesqueer. Etcetera Theatre.

In the Elizabethan period queer sex was mostly taboo. Close and intense friendships on the other hand were highly valued. It was often through deep bonds of friendship that lovers of the same sex were free to reveal feelings and discover intimacy. Perhaps that is one reason Shakespeare’s more sexually ambivalent characters so often seem to abandon their passionate same-sex relationships on route to heterosexual marriage. Twelfth Night’s Antonio, who may or may not be queer, gets the fifth-act boot from his idol Sebastian.  As You Like It hints heavily at an erotic connection between Rosalind and Celia, but both end up marrying men.

Laurie Fahy and Maddy Chisholm-Scott’s 20-minute variant of a piece of Act 3 from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, asks what might happen if things go a different way. Specifically, what if Hermia decides her lifelong intimacy with Helena is more important than her love for Lysander? It is an ambitious and interesting question. Unfortunately, their piece is so short that it struggles to say anything meaty about the subject. Worse, when it finally comes, the women’s coy kiss feels dispiritingly unambitious. This is not so much as a queer reimagination of a classic as a director’s workshop riff on bringing out the lesbian subtext in a scene or two. It is a queer amuse-bouche rather than a substantial meal; this needs a ton more spicing-up. All-in-all, very much work-in-progress.

More interesting is Rosalie and Juliet, the second marginally longer piece that comprises Shakesqueer. Lorna McCoid brings an all-female, comic version of Romeo and Juliet’s lovers’ meeting and balcony scene to modern-day London. The key location is the buzzing women-only night at The Verona Bar Nightclub. While the girls are snapping selfies for “thy Instagram” and arranging “thy Ubers” home, Rosalie (Laura Plumley), daughter of militant climate change activist, Lady Montague, spies the delicious Juliet (Nina Fidderman) across a steamy dancefloor. The two chat and fall instantly in love. But there is a problem, Juliet’s family are climate crisis deniers and energy barons. No, “tis not the Kardashians, ‘tis the Capulets”. Anticipate biting thumbs from the boozed up representatives of each family, with a shot-fuelled, punch-up very much on the books.

Rosalie decides that she cannot go home so locks herself in one of the club’s toilet cubicles. Who should enter the ladies-room but Juliet. “O Rosalie, Rosalie! wherefore art thou Rosalie? Deny thy mother and refuse thy name” she demands as she smartens up her lippy in the mirror. It is not often you see Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene performed over a cubicle wall in a queer bar and it is quite a thing to behold.

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” declares a loved-up Juliet to the mirror. McCoid’s point in Rosalie and Juliet seems to be that whatever anyone else might name it, queer love is as sweet as straight love. It is a point well-made in this quirkily waggish slice of fun. Just a shame the first piece in Shakesqueer was not as thought-through as this.

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

Adaptor: Laurie Fahy and Maddy Chisholm-Scott

Director:  Laurie Fahy

‘Rosalie and Juliet’

Adaptor: Lorna McCoid

Director:  Lorna McCoid