"Romeo, Romeo, where is f**king Romeo?" pleads a sleep deprived, anguished Juliet, her spirit broken by potty training failure and an emotionally inept husband. Romeo hides. He reads a newspaper and eats a chocolate bar cosseted behind the front door of their Paris apartment, unable to offer succour to either his hysterical wife or screaming toddler.
Choreographer Ben Duke thrusts us into the tedium and mediocrity of married life. Juliet and Romeo - a guide to long life and a happy marriage offers a candid glimpse of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers if they had survived the gauntlet of death draughts and daggers.
We meet Romeo (Duke) and Juliet (Solène Weinachter) in couple therapy. 40 somethings staring down the barrel of middle age; burdened by a limp marriage that hasn't lived up to romantic expectations.
Attempting to address their problems, they take turns to recall memories. Acting out their hormone-fuelled dalliance, brush with death and elopement to France; they bicker about the accuracy of their recollections. In Duke's imaging, Juliet awakes before Romeo takes the poison. The business of getting to know one another follows hasty nuptials. Sitting at a Formica kitchen table they exchange superficial information as if on a bad first date.
The blend of spoken word and choreography is darkly funny. The grit in the humour elicits pearls of warmth and empathy from the audience. The desire for a happy ending is palpable, although - spoiler alert - not meant to be. Duke's talent as a choreographer and performer is in expressing what is not said. Speaking about the work, he describes finding the cracks in the dialogue - gaps where movement can do the talking. The choreographic conversation between Duke and Weinachter is first class. A delicious awkwardness is penned by Duke's twisted limbs, his long legs shoot out from underneath him like clumsy chat up line. He sends his body in multiple directions, sometimes crumbling in on himself, or on occasion exploding like a pent-up teenager.