Romeo And Juliet, English Touring Theatre, York Theatre Royal, September 8 to 13

Artistic director Stephen Unwin has mischief in his deep-set eyes when he recalls responding to just such a letter from one of those concerned types alarmed by the post-war poster for English Touring Theatre's imminent tour of Romeo And Juliet.

"I reminded him that if we were to do it in the manner of Shakespeare's time, Juliet would have been played by a boy. Or maybe we could have used a girl of 14, Juliet's age, when we all know that girls of 14 can't yet act," says Stephen.

After a month of rehearsals in London, Unwin and his cast have moved up to York Theatre Royal for next week's opening of Romeo And Juliet: the first co-production between the York theatre and ETT after well-received visits with Diana Quick in Ghosts, Timothy West in King Lear and Michael Pennington in John Gabriel Borkman.

As with those productions, ETT will be fastidious in its presentation of the text and story and yet looking to make its own mark visually. In this case, the ancient feud of the Capulets and Montagues will be moved forward to post-war Verona.

"We've set it in the late 1940s and the staging is incredibly simple, just a wooden floor," says Stephen. "We looked at setting it in High Renaiss-ance times, but that is literally men in tights, and there's no way round it: men in tights is an acquired taste at the best of times and it's impossible to make men in tights work without a huge budget. Having investigated that, we still needed to find something that was very Italian, as that is so essential to the play, but modern Italian wouldn't work either.

"Today, we wouldn't understand the role of the Friar, or have the extreme contrasts of poverty and wealth that make up the social structure within the two families."

Stephen settled upon the late 1940s. "I'm a big fan of the Italian realist films made after the war, I've travelled a lot around Italy and I've read plenty of Italian post-war literature. That was a very tough time in Italy, just as Romeo And Juliet is a very tough play."

Stephen says his production will not be all Vespas and cappuccinos. They would be distractions when clarity is all, he believes.

"This is a sister production to Lear, if you like, and as with Lear, we'll be letting the audience see the story in a way that is fast and clear and true to the play.

"Too often Shakespeare productions are slow, cluttered and badly spoken. What this production will seek to be is well spoken, fast, clear and driven, so we've cut the play down to two and a half hours in the rehearsal room."

Stephen admits to being contradictory in his pruning. "I'm a hysterical purist about the language but I say if I don't understand it after three times of reading it, how will someone hearing it only once in York?

"If you cut the text that is most impenetrable, then the drama benefits. It's not that Shakespeare was a bad writer, just that he was writing in Elizabethan times!"

Romeo And Juliet, English Touring Theatre, York Theatre Royal, September 8 to 13. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 14:51 Friday, September 05, 2003