Auckland Theatre Company’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’ is a Fever Dream of Passion, Eroticism, and Tragedy
Love, death, beauty, ecstasy, heartbreak — Auckland Theatre Company’s audacious new production of Romeo & Juliet under the direction of Benjamin Kilby-Henson is a supernova of emotion, and it explodes with vibrant intensity across the boards of the ASB Waterfront Theatre. This is no dusty retread of the Bard’s most iconic tragedy. Instead, Kilby-Henson and his remarkable creative team serve up a bold, sensual, and visually entrancing reinterpretation that pulses with life and will leave you breathless in your seat. It’s Shakespeare like you’ve never felt before.
This Romeo & Juliet isn’t afraid to take risks. And they pay off. With an understanding that his audience is already familiar with the world’s most famous lovers and their doomed fate, Kilby-Henson boldly pushes past tradition and dives headfirst into a sensory experience that melds classic text with dreamlike surrealism and Kiwi originality. He doesn’t tear down Shakespeare’s words, he honours them, but he breathes into them new meaning and urgency, all while casting them through a wildly contemporary lens. What results is a feverish exploration of the play’s emotional core, soaked in erotic energy, musical fervour, and aching, tragic beauty.
Split into two distinct halves — Act One: Love and Act Two: Death — the production is anchored by a striking visual and emotional journey. Act One is a luscious, romantic fantasy rendered in blazing shades of pink, red, orange, and peach. There’s a dreamy, Felliniesque energy at play here, with nods to La Dolce Vita, the opulence of Capote’s Black and White Ball, and the whimsical artifice of Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon. It’s theatricality turned up to 11: bold, flamboyant, and stunning to behold.
But as we fall deeper into the romance, the stage undergoes a total metamorphosis. Act Two: Death arrives like a creeping fog, drenching the theatre in an eerie, moss-green haze. The cast, now clothed in shadowy black, wander across a set that feels haunted, like a world unravelling. The tonal shift is palpable, and Kilby-Henson leans into the ghostly with full abandon — none more so than through the mysterious and spectral figure of Death herself, played with entrancing stillness and chilling presence by Amanda Tito. Hovering at the periphery, emerging in key moments, she is a constant reminder of the play’s fatal trajectory, and her presence adds an uncanny, almost horror-esque texture that’s impossible to shake.
Much of the success of the production lies in Kilby-Henson’s inspired partnership with movement director Katrina George. Together, they reimagine Romeo & Juliet not just as a tragedy, but as a living, breathing force of nature. George’s choreography is primal and carnal: bodies twist, thrust, and collide with animalistic abandon. A central movement sequence, set to a hypnotic musical number, transforms the traditional masked ball into an erotic, kaleidoscopic celebration of sensuality and discovery. It’s part nightclub, part ritual, all pulsing with heat and sweat and longing.
At the heart of this gorgeous chaos are the lovers themselves: Jesme Fa’auuga’s Romeo and Phoebe McKellar’s Juliet. Forget what you think you know; these aren’t the stock characters of high school English. Fa’auuga plays Romeo not as a lovesick poet, but as a strutting, charismatic playboy who falls hard and fast, and throws himself into love with unchecked abandon. McKellar’s Juliet is something else entirely — a rebel angel with a punk-rock edge, who burns with adolescent defiance and an aching hunger to feel something real. Together, their chemistry is combustible, their courtship unfolding like a meteor strike. Their romance is more than star-crossed; it’s soaked in sweat, laughter, and aching, bare-skinned desire.
Indeed, this production leans all the way into the eroticism often buried within the text. The love scenes between Romeo and Juliet drip with sensuality, as the stage becomes a bedroom of sighs, limbs, and whispered oaths. Their love is written not just in poetry, but in flesh. It’s unashamed, thrilling, and entirely fitting for the passions at play.
The supporting cast brings their own unique brilliance to Kilby-Henson’s kaleidoscopic vision. Courtney Eggleton is an absolute scene-stealer as the Nurse, oscillating wildly between comedic buffoonery and fierce maternal devotion. She’s a delight to watch, unpredictable, hilarious, and deeply moving in equal measure. Ryan Carter’s Mercutio is all glitter, sass, and swagger, a dazzling sparkplug of queer rebellion and theatrical defiance. His electric dynamic with Liam Coleman’s quietly smouldering Benvolio (yes, their on-stage kiss will get a reaction from the audience) is one of the production’s most powerful subversions, and it lands like fireworks.
Then there’s Beatriz Romilly, who unleashes an absolute firestorm as Lady Capulet. Equal parts cougar and queen, she prowls the stage with a smirk, drenched in sensuality and raw command. It’s a performance of swagger and smoulder, and Romilly plays every note with delicious intensity. Finally, Miriama McDowell brings soulful depth and gravitas to Whaea Lawrence, reimagined as a wise wahine of the land, and the only voice of reason in a world spiralling into chaos. Her presence is grounding, her performance majestic.
There’s something remarkable about this Romeo & Juliet that goes beyond aesthetics. It’s in the way it taps into the pulse of youth. Of Gen-Z freedom and frustration. Of young bodies desperate to love, to rebel, to escape, to feel. It strips back the centuries and shows us how the play has always been about the same thing — the glorious, uncontrollable mess of being alive and young and burning with love in a world that doesn’t understand you.
Auckland Theatre Company’s Romeo & Juliet is a fever dream. A burning cathedral of love, lust, grief, and rage. It’s a masterpiece of live performance, full of audacity and invention, that proves Shakespeare still has the power to speak to us — loudly, sensually, and with heartbreaking immediacy. You don’t just watch this production. You feel it.
Romeo & Juliet is now playing at the ASB Waterfront Theatre. Run, don’t walk. This is one for the ages.
Image: Andi Crown
