Alexander Vlahos interview
"Romeo has directness and playfulness in spades"

Understanding Romeo is at the heart of Alexander Vlahos's interpretation of his first Shakespearean lead for the stage at Shakespeare's Rose Theatre in York

Foto: Alexander Vlahos, Romeo and Juliet - Copyright: Robling Photography
Alexander Vlahos, Romeo and Juliet
© Robling Photography

June 19, 2018 by Nicole Oebel @philomina_

In fair York, where we lay our scene, they're building a theatre, three storeys high. The 13-sided, pop-up open-air theatre is rising at the feet of Clifford's Tower. Inspired by The Rose, built in 1587 in London, Shakespeare's Rose Theatre offers space for no less than 950 guests. From June 25 to September 2 two companies of actors will perform four Shakespeare plays, each company taking on two plays. One of them is Romeo and Juliet starring Alexander Vlahos in the role of young Romeo Montague.

During the past three years of mostly filming in Paris for the lavish TV drama series Versailles, Alexander Vlahos also got to expand his repertoire by being part of Max Gill's invigoratingly innovative stage adaption of La Ronde in London, as well as deepening his acquaintance with the Bard by portraying the Prince of Denmark for Big Finish's excellent full-cast audio version of Hamlet. Now, after laying Philippe, Duke of Orléans to rest and saying goodbye to Versailles, Verona awaits. Chatting with a highly animated Alex about Shakespeare's words, the character of Romeo and what this new challenge means to him is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; the which if you with patient eyes and ears attend, what here shall miss, our talk shall strive to mend.

Related: Catching up with Alex Vlahos mid-run Romeo and Juliet in York
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Your favourite part about being who you are, you've once explained, is that no day is the same. Is that why you seem to have been mixing it up recently, stage, audio and TV work?

It's never a conscious decision to mix it up. It can be perceived from the outside world that you are making brave choices. Funny enough, I went up for loads of very high profile TV jobs after Versailles and a really big film that I got very close to, all of which were a big change from Versailles, from Merlin… Modern day stuff. Me and my agent were trying to get the shackles of the classical Alex off people's eye. I know I can play 'modern day' but people see me in Versailles, Merlin, The Indian Doctor, Genius… all these shows that I've done aren't set in modern day. So my agent and I decided after Versailles would be over we'd try - and it might not work for a while, which it didn't - that I'd go up for a lot of modern day stuff. Up to a week before I got the call about Romeo I was going to get my hair cut, I was going to have new headshots done and make a really conscious decision to get rid of the shackles of the classical look with the curly hair, we were talking about shaved head and just try something new, giving my career a new avenue. But it's not a forefront of my brain to avidly seek out very different work. My heart is always on the stage, it's where I feel I can be the best I can be as an actor. And it's also validation that you seek from being an actor that the stage offers you quite quickly. Doing a show like Versailles having to wait almost a year for it to come out - and it comes out in different countries so it scatters - the validation is not so immediate. Being in a rehearsal room is my favourite place to be. So the stage and playing Romeo felt like an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

What led you to Romeo?

What led me to Romeo was my desire to do Shakespeare. I got offered a couple of other amazing plays and I said no. Then I got the call saying "Would you want to meet Lindsay Posner [director] to play Romeo?" I thought Romeo passed me by. There's this thing in Shakespeare where, if you haven't played a character by a certain age then you say goodbye to him and move on to the next one. Romeo I felt had left me go and potentially a next one would be someone like a Henry V and you work your way up age wise. So when my agent said "This is probably your last opportunity to play Romeo" - that was a conscious decision to give it a go.

With Romeo I have a really bad opinion or convention or something prerequisite in my brain, about the character and about Romeo and Juliet as a play. I don't think I've ever seen a very good production of it. Or if I have I don't think Romeo has been memorable. I always find Romeo, when I've seen him on stage, quite wet, that idea that love can happen like Cupid's arrow wounding him - whoever's been playing him I never really bought into it. I've never really believed that young love and that they would kill themselves for each other. So the Romeo I'm going to try and portray is not going to be on the back foot [woeful voice] "Woe is me, love hurts" - none of that. I wanted to make him front-footed and funny, forward thinking and not taking everything in. Especially in the beginning of the play with Rosaline I wanted to make him angry! Angry that she doesn't love him back. The reason why he's angry is because she won't put out. He thinks he loves Rosaline but he really wants to get in her knickers. Rosaline's chastity is the thing that annoys him. What a waste of beauty, he says. He's a horny 18-year-old and he thinks it's love until he sees Juliet.

Lindsay really is on top of me to deliver a Romeo that we both discussed when I first met him. We're both on the same page that he should be a type of person that needs to be full of passion and funny and quick.

Quoting Lindsay, the director, you are reinterpreting the plays to reflect the preoccupations of the day, hoping to make them provocative and challenging as well as accessible. Is this what you meant back then talking about Hamlet: "That's what Shakespeare is great at doing - allowing actors to confront their challenges head on?"

Absolutely, absolutely! Lindsay says that you have to realise, the way that Shakespeare writes, these are the only words, there's no other words they can use. It's not modern day writing where they could have said something different. Shakespeare is choosing specifically these words, there isn't another option. When you know that, that every word they say is so important to impart on the other person then that makes it incredibly vibrant and incredibly powerful.

To use Lindsay's quote you quoted back at me, that's about aesthetics as well as about acting. Accessibility comes from the actors, making sure that we are heard, that the story is clear and that the decisions we are making in the room are interesting first and foremost. We can interpret the text, whatever is more interesting for the production that is rooted in the text. The other thoughts are more about aesthetics, this isn't going to be Shakespeare in time garb. We aren't going to do an almost tourist version of the play to get the heritage sight thing that the Globe for example has. Both the director and we as actors are trying to make it accessible and powerful and that also coincides with what they're doing with Richard III as well - which I'm in but it's a small, small, small part.

There's nothing quite like doing Shakespeare.

This is your first Shakespeare lead on stage in a role that has major scenes with everyone. This is specifically interesting because in my opinion you are an actor who has chemistry with everyone [he laughs]. Could a reason for that be that you can't split yourself up from the person you play?

Really, really sweet of you to think that. My first lead as a Shakespearean actor comes with a lot of responsibility I don't think I was quite prepared for, not necessarily being a company leader but the work load of tackling this text and having to be Romeo and having to make decisions is a new thing which is only going to benefit me. We've all seen TV shows and films where, especially in a love and relationship aspect they had no chemistry… Someone a very long time ago believed Alexandra Dowling and I had chemistry together on Merlin. Someone believed that we worked very well on camera together and we did. I met Ali two days before we started shooting that and me and her had to create a past relationship that was never seen, that was only implied on camera within five scenes and then she gets killed. That's a lot to do and I think it was one of Ali's first jobs out of drama school, an amazing actress that went on to play a lead in "The Musketeers"... On my recall day, when I found out that they cast Ali I was pleased as hell to have her as my Juliet because there was a history, a working history that we have together which means there's a shorthand that we have already. On the day of the read-through the first day of rehearsals we gave each other a massive big squeeze and talked about times gone by... It cut through the bullshit quite quickly of that tentative first Hi that actors do.

In La Ronde those three other actors, we never met each other before and we had to make quick strives. Max [Gill, writer and director] did that very well, day 2 of rehearsals we were on the floor touching every part of each others' bodies with our noses. It was a quick way of getting intimate with each other, we only got four weeks to do this and needed to be very comfortable with each other in very different manners of desire and sex. The process got sped up.

With Romeo and Juliet we got longer but me and Ali having a history together cuts through that. And we're both coming at it with our ideas for Romeo and Juliet very equally, we're not disagreeing on why they're doing these things. So there's a chemistry on stage between the two of us, the production would of course struggle if Romeo and Juliet didn't have any chemistry [chuckles].

Foto: Alexander Vlahos, Alexandra Dowling, Romeo and Juliet - Copyright: Robling Photography
Alexander Vlahos, Alexandra Dowling, Romeo and Juliet
© Robling Photography

I think it's our job as actors, just to surmise with your thought, to work very, very hard at that chemistry, whether that's a brotherly chemistry with me and George [Blagden], whether that's a romantic, frisson chemistry with me and Evan [Williams], whether that's a father-son like relationship with Bontemps - you have to work on that and that comes, funny enough, with time off camera.

I do give up too much of myself to parts to the point where it can be a detriment to my health sometimes, when I live and breathe that character, especially with Philippe, all-encompassing, you know I couldn't shake him. Actually this is the first proper part since finishing Versailles in October, the first time I had to step into a completely different character and really have to let Philippe go and that's been so rewarding to actually get to do that.

Making rehearsals even more exciting, I imagine. You have been rehearsing for a few weeks now. How is it going especially since you aren't only rehearsing Romeo and Juliet?

The rehearsal period is unlike anything I've ever done because you do maybe a day on Romeo and then you do an afternoon on Richard III… It's very hard to gain momentum. Normally you would rehearse a play, get to the end and start again. We've been rehearsing for about six weeks but only last week did we get to the end of the play, to the death scene. It's been a long process of getting here. We're doing the dance a lot, and when Romeo and Juliet share a sonnet together we're doing that a lot. Also the balcony scene - that balcony scene is a bitch by the way [laughs], it comes with a load of baggage, people believe that they've seen that balcony scene loads and how it should be done so I always try to make the choice that is more interesting.

I admit, for me the balcony scene is the swimming pool scene really because of the Baz Luhrman film.

The Baz Luhrman film, rightly or wrongly, has opened up an amazing opportunity for young kids education. My English teacher put in the DVD and it was the most amazing thing, "this is Shakespeare?", visceral, fun, quick - but working with the text Baz cut loads to make it work for him, butchered the text because he could show it rather than let them say it. There comes a lot of baggage with that film. People are going to come and see a two and a half hour production, it's not a one and a half hour film. There are more moments in the stage version that need to be told. So people will come expecting it to be something that Romeo and Juliet the play not necessarily is. The pool scene is actually a balcony scene, he never actually gets up to see her. They never have contact. The whole scene in the pool together kissing takes away the classical romantic aspect of "You're up there, I'm down here, you're an angel, I'm merely a peasant", but it's certainly one of the most memorable scenes in Baz's film.

Also Mercutio in the film has probably the best entrance ever! He has that amazing dance sequence, full drag, it's incredible. The "a plague on both your houses" speech is probably the best scene in the film, when you see it on stage it doesn't have that same [bangs fist in hand and makes popping sound] but it can. It's about showing the audience that's not necessarily the way it needs to go. So at the moment we're constantly trying to get rid of that Baz Luhrman thing. Also, it's Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, they're very good actors, even at that age. I'm not doing it like Leo [laughs].

That film is a blessing for kids and young adults to find their way into Shakespeare and realise that Shakespeare doesn't have to be unrecognisable words but it also is a curse for any production that follows it because it is so well done. We're just trying to keep it exciting for people.

On a scale from Philippe to Hamlet - how dramatic flair, moodswingy is Romeo and how far is he from you?

Romeo is me. Has to be me. You can't fabricate feeling unrequited love or feeling true love or feeling at the point where love means suicide and then finding out that your true love has passed away. Balthazar comes to Romeo when he's in Mantua when he's being banished and says "She rests at Capel's tomb. She's at peace but she's dead." And Shakespeare only gives him a line to encapsulate all of that: "Is it e'en so? Then I defy you, stars!" And in that moment he makes the decision "I'll rest with you tonight". That's a big leap! I have to be me in that position, I can't just go, yeah, I'll imagine what that feeling would be like. Otherwise I would be kidding myself, I couldn't do a three months run of the show separating that. I have to take all that in. Have I ever been in that position where love would make me do silly things - yes I have. Not suicide, but decisions that we make because of love - you have to tap into that.

On a scale from Philippe to Hamlet - [chuckles] that's a great question - I would say bang in the middle. You have Philippe on one end of the spectrum and Hamlet on the other end of the spectrum, I think Romeo is a marriage of the two. Less moodswingy, less depressed, less bipolar and less quadrophenic than Philippe, much more well-rounded as a person but he's still a teenager. And with Hamlet that directness and that decision making and also the playfulness that Hamlet has - Romeo has that in spades. My favourite scene in the whole play, funny enough, is the scene with the friar where he decides that he's in love, "I'm in love and you have to marry us today!" It's such a great scene, he's just full of want to believe it. It's a proper journey.

It really is. He gets the girl, gets to fight, gets to die onstage - You once mentioned a note you got in school that you were "doing too much". Is there such a thing as "doing too much" with Romeo?

That note in drama school was about acting too much, showing too much. With Romeo I get to do everything, it's amazing. I'm really, really enjoying allowing myself to go to an extreme - emotionally, facially, pushing myself to my breaking point. Lauren [Samuels], when she was in Bolton, the director of her play used this quote: "You need to shit on the stage!" Literally go out there and give fucking everything you have, empty yourself to the audience! And that's what I'm trying to do in rehearsals, give everything over, come away exhausted. It's hard to do that constantly because it takes a lot of energy and effort. But that's the goal. So when I get to York, every night, I don't want to come off feeling like I've tricked and lied to the audience.

On camera, with Philippe and anything I've done on television I always feel it's a detachment to some point. I'll always remember the firework scene with me crying in season 1 about the brother in the bag …it was three o'clock in the morning, they pissed me off, kept me waiting for four hours, it was cold, we had about 15 minutes to shoot it, I detached myself so much that you thought that I was there but I wasn't. That's television - you can't get away with that on stage. There's something about stretching those muscles, going down that avenue of true love and going down the murder scene, to go to those extremes you have to be able to shit on the stage. There really isn't doing too much. Also, this isn't indoor theatre... It's the first time I'll ever do open-air theatre. It immediately becomes bigger, you need to show more than you would normally, you have to give yourself over to the audience and there's something quite liberating about that.

The opposite to what you did on Hamlet for Big Finish, isn't it?

Completely the opposite to Hamlet because me and Scott [Handcock] made a conscious decision, we have a microphone that's the extra character in this play, that's the audience. I remember sitting on the floor, pulling the microphone down trying to get the world to come to me, to Hamlet. Can't do that on stage with Romeo, can't get them to come to me, I have to go to them. That's what makes Romeo front-footed, coming to you, I'm showing you my heart.

Hamlet is a character you believe should be played young. What about Romeo, how important is it to you how old your Romeo is?

We made decisions as a company about ages to make it work for the setting. 18 / 19, they're all numbers at the end of the day but what is important is that Romeo's decision making is not the decision making of a 30-year-old. I made Hamlet come to my age, Hamlet was 28 at the time of recording because I was 28, that was the way in - making him young. Philippe was always my age. With Romeo every decision that I have to make I have to remind myself, why would someone do this? Why is someone so volatile and has a tantrum? [acts out a small taster of one of Romeo's tantrums]. That rashness comes with youth. Not to blanket that some young people can be incredibly wise. Romeo is wise but when love takes over this is the way in for me to decipher his decision making - he's young, she's even younger, they're in love, they make silly decisions. It's about making sure that it's 12 / 15 years between Alex and Romeo. I have to tap myself about how I was like at the time before I went to drama school.

What do you focus on when you're trying to interpret Romeo and Juliet for the stage?

All of us as a company are trying to do it in the best possible, interesting way that's informed by the text. Focus on the words, let that inform the production. But then also the director has superimposed the theme which is the 1930s, 1932 fascism and communism is rife, black shirts, Mussolini's height of power before Nazi hit Germany, that as a template helps root the characters in a world which then we play. The Capulets and Montagues fighting at the start has something about it that we never find out, an ancient grudge, but we rooted it in business deals and mafia sort of things. The Italian name is an interesting thing. Juliet asks Romeo at the balcony scene: "If you were any other than a Montague, could you get rid of your name and then we'll live happily ever after." That idea for us as a modern day audience is what's in a name? But for these Italian families, name and family is everything. Would you disown your family for love? They end up defying their families for each other.

Without a doubt Romeo and Juliet is the most famous fictional love story but it also explores the generation gap, social status, friendship, Romeo being one of the boys... how are you approaching it, what is interesting for you about this play?

The love aspect of it, funny enough, the love as a theme in general is the one that I have been finding difficult to grasp early on. Why would these two kids do these things for love. That's why I'm making sure that I displant my brain and put it in the mind of a youthful person. The friendship and being one of the boys is quite interesting because Mercutio is a girl. And in love with Romeo. And Romeo misses that. Mercutio's Queen Mab speech is amazing, Shanaya [Rafaat] is an amazing actress. She's part of the boys, she's a lad, she's a tomboy and that's why Romeo never really sees the love in her.

There's loads of stuff, the friendship, the generation gap, what family means, but fate was the way in for me. They talk about stars, Romeo especially, before he goes to the party he says "There's something in the air I can't quite put a handle on that feels like death on its way but fuck it I'll go". He reads into his mind and he always gets it wrong. And he misinterprets dreams [passionately recites a couple of Romeo's lines about dreams and stars - listen to the sound clip below]. Fate is an amazing thing that Shakespeare uses. Two star-crossed lovers – Shakespeare is saying no matter what they would do, they're destined to have this fate. And pushing against fate will actually push you further into what the track is supposed to be and that's an amazing thing that you can't really show an audience but you can try and guide them to what that is. Being a pessimist [points at himself] fate is quite a hard thing to grasp. Serendipity I sort of believe in. So fate and finding that interesting has been my way in.

I was hoping to talk to you about Mercutio and now I'm so surprised that in your production Mercutio is a girl!

It offers up more options than problems. When Romeo runs away from the party Mercutio conjures up Romeo, she thinks he's going back to Rosaline and it's heartache for her. Also Mercutio is stepping in to fight on behalf of Romeo and when she gets slain it's loaded with so much more than friendship, it's loaded with love. But Romeo is so blinded by his tunnel vision of Rosaline and Juliet that he's actually quite pig-ignorant to the rest of the people's feelings. Woe is me! There are amazing things happening on the side of it that we're trying to seek out.

Do you remember saying "true love overrides all in the end"...

Talking about MonChevy.

Exactly! And do you remember saying between Mordred and Kara it was childlike love...

Me and Ali never talked about them not kissing or whether they would kiss. And I don't think they ever did. I think it was childlike love - not true love but first love. That's amazing to have that innocence. The only intimate thing that we ever did was that we put our heads together.

So it's interesting to have that debate in Romeo and Juliet as to whether love can conquer all or not.

At the end of the play they do come together, the Capulets and the Montagues. We're led to believe that Romeo and Juliet had to die in order for something bigger to happen, like a domino effect. They had to meet and they had to go through this anguish together to calm and to quell family grudges. Does true love override all? They're together whether that's in this life or the next. It's a heartbreaking scene, the end. If it's done well - hoping that ours is [knocks on wood] - the audience won't feel sadness for death but sadness for a missed opportunity of what these two could have been. If it is true love then they could have been amazing for each other. Missed opportunities in life are generally the most frustrating thing. What could have been or should have been - it drives me insane thinking about the What ifs of life. You can't get yourself bogged down by it because you have to be in the moment in the present continuously moving forward and positive. But that's what's so great about Shakespeare, right at the very end he offers up the What ifs. Romeo and Juliet did love each other but they only have one night together [playfully paraphrases their first scene together - listen to the sound clip below]. Who's to know - [laughs] I hate to think this but who's to know they may have realised they absolutely hated each other.

What true love is really, the grand scheme of things is what you will do for love and they both prove they will go beyond life. My friend told me what his dad calls true love and it's quite a base thing - I don't really believe it - "Would you jump in front of a bus for that person?"

That's like the Bruno Mars song "I would catch a grenade for you" ...isn't it more courageous to be there for that person than to catch a grenade for them.

Yes, you're right, and that's the youthfulness that Romeo and Juliet both don't quite understand. Romeo's immediate act at seeing her "dead" is to take his own life. I'm sure Juliet, had she been dead on that tomb, would have wanted Romeo to live on. Their youthfulness gets in the way of sense.

The maturity aspect is an interesting one - Romeo believes he understands himself and being in love but does he really, and do we ever see him grow up?

Yeah, we see him grow up. Wrongly, quickly, things that happen to him force him to grow up. There's a steeliness - hopefully - in the way that I'm trying to demonstrate his decision making once he finds out that Juliet is "dead". He doesn't become rash, he becomes driven and his decision making becomes definite. Saying there's a maturity in suicide would be completely the wrong message but there's a maturity in making a decision that's so big and grand and just going through with it.

In our earlier talks we talked about the maturity in Hamlet and in Philippe and your own growing up at the time. What chances do you see in this new role for your development and maturity as an actor?

So much, so so much! Parts come to you when you don't think you need them. Playing Romeo, one of the most romantic parts, at this point in my life could not have come at a better or worse time. It is informing everything and how I'm feeling in my personal life. Romeo could not be more apt right now in my mental state. Everything informs everything, it has to, especially in acting. You take what's happening to you and try and bring it in and then let the text inform you about who you are as a person. Romeo is doing that and I'm doing that to Romeo so they're both a marriage of thoughts.

From June 25 you will be in York on stage at the first Shakespeare pop-up theatre, and from what you shared on Twitter so far it all looks a lot like summer camp.

[Laughs] I wish it was like summer camp! Yeah, my plan is to start a Shakespeare turf war with the northern company, the West Side Story, the Jets and the Sharks… At the moment we're in a normal rehearsal pretending like it's pros-arch theatre. It's very hard to realise what it's going to be like until we're there. It's quite unfathomable. I can't wait to spend three months in a place I've never been, over the summer and be part of a first. It's Europe's first pop-up theatre. The producer saw it I think in New Zealand and brought it to Europe. It's an exciting time. Summer camp with a lot of sweating and hard work.

Related: Catching up with Alex Vlahos mid-run Romeo and Juliet in York



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