Shakespeare's classic play. Given to Oz TV treatment. It was part of the Love and War series and went for 90 minutes.
Fascinating
to see a "young person" version of this before the Zefferelli movie
came out and an Aussie version two decades before the famous Baz
version.
Premise
In the Italian town of Verona, Romeo and Juliet are teenagers from feuding families who fall in love.
Cast
- Sean Scully as Romeo
- Liza Goddard as Juliet
- Robin Ramsay as Mercutio
- Burt Cooper as Benvolio
- David Turnbull as Tybalt
- Helmut Bakaitis as Paris
- Joan Harris as nurse
- Syd Conabere as Friar Laurence
- Joseph James as Capulet
- Jennifer Claire as Lady Capulet
- David Spurling as Montague
- Marcella Burgoyne as Lady Montague
- Keith Lee as Escalus
- Paul Eddey as Friar John
- Gary Gray as Balthasar
- Carl Beazby as Watchman
- Martin Vaughan as Capulet Servant
Original play
You all know it, right? Very often produced.
Other adaptations
It was filmed for Canadian TV in 1965. There had been a 1966 ballet version, an 1962 ITV version, 1955 BBC TV version, 1947 BBC TV version.
US TV did it in 1957, 1954, 1949. Plus the feature film versions in 1936, 1954 and 1968.
ABC radio did a 1952 version directed by Paul O'Loghlin. They played a BBC radio version in 1955.
Production
It was the first Australian TV presentation of the play and featured a cast of over fifty.
"Using young actors makes the story more acceptable," said director Oscar Whitbread. "The basic thing with teenagers is that they tend to become isolated from their parents and society when they fall in love. But do we, as adults, understand the purity of their love?"
It was filmed in Melbourne. The production was announced in July and rehearsals began in September.
The adaptation was by Alan Cole of Melbourne University. Whitbread claimed that "Alan Cole has adapted it beautifully."
Sean Scully was then 19 and had just returned from New York where he had been in The Girl Who Came to Supperer. Liza Goddard was 18 years old and had been in several TV plays. She was the daughter of Drew Goddard, head of ABC TV drama at the time.
When it was being rehearsed a film of the ballet starring Nureyev was being shown in Australia and the Zefferelli movie was being filmed.
Other Crew
Duels
by Tom Gross. Dance sequences by Bert Shaw. Music by Frank Smith.
Lighting by Harry Myters. Technical production by Brian Rodgers.
Costumes by Trevor Ling. Settings by Kevin Bartlett. Produced and
directed by Oscar Whitbread.
Reception
The Age called it "a really splendid achievement."
The Sydney Morning Herald said the production "will not need to be kept for generations ungotten and unborn...listening was like reading with every line spaced out. Sean Scully and Liza Goddard were looking as though they wanted to play it in jeans... The production lacked creative direction."
TV Times called it "a Romeo and Juliet to be well remembered."
My thoughts: it's a good production. Oscar Whitbread was a skilled director. I liked the camera work which moves around and goes into close ups. Australians had learned to direct TV by this stage.
Scully is excellent as the moony Romeo and Goddard very good. Nanny over acts.
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| SMH 19 Oct 1967 p 14 |
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| The Age Supplement 26 Oct 1967 p 3 |
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| The Age Supplement 6 July 1967 p 1 |
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| The Age Supplement 12 Oct 1967 p 2 |
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| The Age Supplement 12 Oct 1967 p 2 |
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| Canberra Times 20 Oct 1967 p 15 |
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| SMH 16 Oct 1967 p 17 |
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| SMH 18 Nov 1967 p 27 |
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| TVT 1 Nov 1967 |
From Filmink
Forgotten Australian TV plays: Romeo and Juliet
by Stephen Vagg
March 8, 2021
In
the latest in his series on Australian TV plays, Stephen Vagg looks at a
time when the ABC went young and funky over Shakespeare.
Almost
thirty years before Baz Luhrmann stunned the world with Romeo + Juliet,
there was another Australian film of Shakespeare’s classic play. This
was Romeo and Juliet, a 1967 feature length TV production made by the
ABC in Melbourne.
“Never heard of it,” (I assume) you reply.
That’s not surprising. It’s not available to rent. It wasn’t widely repeated. It wasn’t a ratings sensation at the time.
But it did exist, I recently saw a copy of it, and found it charming.
It
was part of Love and War, a short-lived anthology series broadcast on
ABC TV from September to October 1967. Premiering on Wednesday nights,
this consisted of seven standalone TV plays with the unifying theme of –
you guessed it – love and war. The other entries were:
– Man of Destiny based on the play by George Bernard Shaw – starring Ann (Madge from Neighbours) Charleston
– Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance, based on the play by John Arden
– O’Flaherty VC, based on another play by Shaw
– The Brass Butterfly, based on a play by William Golding
– Intersection, from a (I think original) script by Australian author Michael Boddy, starring Helen Morse
– Construction, from a script by Australian John Croyston
The
Romeo and Juliet adaptation – the last episode of Love and War to air –
was made at ABC’s Melbourne studios under the direction of Oscar
Whitbread. The ABC had filmed a number of Shakespeare adaptations in the
1950s and 1960s, including versions of The Tempest, Richard II, and two
goes at Macbeth, but this was the first time they tried Romeo and
Juliet.
Whitbread decided to take a youth focused approach, which
is now considered de rigour for this play but was less common at the
time. Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film of Romeo and Juliet was highly
acclaimed for using teens in the title roles, but Whitbread’s production
– which was broadcast before Zeffirelli’s was shot – took the same
approach. “Using young actors makes the story more acceptable,” said
Whitbread at the time. “The basic thing with teenagers is that they tend
to become isolated from their parents and society when they fall in
love. But do we, as adults, understand the purity of their love?”
Nineteen-year-old
Sean Scully, already a showbiz veteran of many years, played Romeo,
with 18 year old Liza Goddard cast as Juliet. (If you ever see it,
you’ll recognise both actors by the way, they’ve been in heaps of stuff:
Scully in Sons and Daughters, Bellbird, John Dingwall’s Phobia, and
everything really; Goddard is perhaps best known here for her stints as
Clancy on Skippy). The support cast included names well known at the
time (like Syd Conabere as inventor-of-the-world’s-worst-plan Friar
Laurence) and others who became well known (like Helmut Bakaitis, who
plays Paris).
The production is charming, anchored by two
excellent lead performances. Scully is superb as the moody, moony Romeo,
very well matched by Goddard as the impulsive Juliet. Oscar Whitbread’s
direction is dynamic and exciting in the best way; the camera moves
around swiftly, but knows when to slow down and always pulls in to a
close up at the right time (many directors of early Australian TV were
shy of using close ups for some reason; not Whitbread). Scully, who had
worked with Whitbread on a production of A Phoenix Too Frequent, told me
“Oscar was a lovely guy. I wouldn’t have any sort of black mark against
Oscar, he was lovely.”
It’s quite a sexy adaptation – there’s
lots of people kissing and Romeo and Juliet are shown in bed together (I
guess it was 1967 by now). Of the support cast, Helmut Bakaitis comes
off best – the role of Paris can be a thankless one, but here he gets
plenty of screen time and makes the most of it.
I don’t want to
pretend the production is without flaws – some of the other performances
don’t quite land, a few fight scenes could have done with another take –
but it is done with taste, feeling and sensitivity, and the ending
packs the requisite punch. And it’s kind of cool that the ABC did a
youth-driven film of this play three decades before Baz.
The author would like to thank Sean Scully for his help with this article.
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