The role of Juliet, one half of the most celebrated pair of young lovers in dramatic history, is a coveted one for any young actress, viewed as it is as a notable marker of early career stand-out promise. I estimate that I have watched more than two dozen performers take on this mighty part over the years and the latest of these is the 23-year-old American Sadie Sink, known to millions of Stranger Things devotees worldwide as the strong and independent Max Mayfield. Sink lines up alongside Noah Jupe (Hamnet) in one of London theatre’s hottest – not to mention priciest – spring tickets.
Before anyone emits an inner groan at the thought of yet another television star being parachuted into a play regardless of ability, I should say that Sink’s stage credentials are already well established. She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress last year for her work in John Procter is the Villain (the second youngest woman ever to receive such a coveted New York accolade) and her confidence with live performance is evident from the start of Robert Icke’s stylish new production which daringly intersplices scenes for maximum impact.
Intriguingly, the action starts with a sleeping Juliet having a sexual fever dream, underscoring the drama’s theme of broiling teenage passion. This, we are left in no doubt, is a young woman with a burgeoning sense of desire.
What increasingly fascinates me is how Juliets often so outshine their Romeos in the acting stakes. A luminous Jessie Buckley did this to Josh O’Connor in the National Theatre’s filmed lockdown production and Sink, radiant with her pre-Raphaelite auburn hair, does so here. She’s an engaging bundle of strongly felt youthful emotions, with twitchy butterfly hands signifying urgency and nervous agitation every time she speaks.
Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe as Romeo and Juliet (Photo: Manuel Harlan)All these characters are people in a hurry; Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare’s most time-aware play and a lowering digital display tracks the days, hours, minutes and even seconds. Let us not forget that the title characters meet for the first time on a Sunday night and are married the next afternoon and by the end of the week both are dead.
What is so potent about the character of Juliet is the speed with which she is forced to grow up. In a lightning flash, Sink moves from bouncing on her bed like a joyful little girl after her first kiss with Romeo, to a reflective and emotionally self-sufficient young woman as she realises painfully that her mother, father and beloved nurse are going to be no help with the infernal predicament she finds herself in.
This arc of emotional development is both immense and intense and it is notable that Romeo has nothing of a similar magnitude.
The finest Juliet I have seen in recent years was a blistering Isis Hainsworth in Rebecca Frecknall’s 2023 Almeida production. I wrote then that “Hainsworth rips the skin off Juliet to reveal the pounding heart beneath” and Sink does something of the same sort here.
By the time she is ready to drink the quasi-fatal potion, this young woman is still, centred and entirely ready to face the destiny she has decided upon for herself – and by herself.
‘Romeo and Juliet’ is at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London to 20 June (romeojulietplay.com)
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