Inside Tom Holland’s Teary, Blood-Soaked Romeo That’s Igniting Fan Frenzy on London’s West End — Even if the ‘Spider-Man’ Star Won’t Sign Any Autographs
Tom Holland is crying. No, it’s not because of the not-so-great reviews he’s been getting for playing the lead in “Romeo & Juliet” on the West End — that’s literally how his Romeo greets the audience when the play opens.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. These days, stepping into Duke of York’s Theatre in London is not unlike walking into a club. After waiting in a line that stretches down the street and passing inspection by security, you’re greeted by pulsating electronic music and encouraged to stop by the bar. But, instead of dancing the night away to the hottest new DJ, young girls (and their parents and/or reluctant boyfriends) are flocking to London for the chance to see Holland play a star-crossed lover in avant-garde auteur Jamie Lloyd’s production.
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For the record, I don’t mind the music — it’s kind of like if Nine Inch Nails soundtracked “Saturday Night Live’s” “High School Theatre Show” sketch, and it adds a certain sense of foreboding to the air, as if to say “this isn’t your typical ‘Romeo & Juliet'” (though we all know what happens at the end). The heavy bass only intensifies as I take my seat — a surprisingly good one in the sixth row, though I did pay £295 for it (that translates to $377, steep even by Broadway standards). Due to Holland’s “Spider-Man” star power, “Romeo & Juliet” has quickly become the hottest ticket in town, with the play’s three-month run selling out in just two hours (a limited amount of tickets are released closer to show days, which is how I snagged mine).
As the play begins, the lights turn off and the music grows louder and more frantic than ever, causing some to jump in their seats as if watching a horror movie.
Holland’s Romeo is introduced to the crowd first via screen; like in Lloyd’s Olivier-winning “Sunset Boulevard,” cameramen flank the actors at certain points throughout the show, broadcasting the video live. Like a boxer entering the ring, he steps on stage — and then starts weeping. It’s a shocking show of emotion from Holland, who viewers are far more used to seeing kick ass in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than shed tears on stage.
After the initial surprise wears off, confusion sets in. Tears streaming down his chiseled face, Holland appears so distraught, so overcome with sadness that I almost wanted to leap on stage to comfort him. Has Lloyd decided to start this “Romeo & Juliet” at the end, when Romeo discovers what he thinks is his lover’s dead body? Then, Holland utters the word “Rosaline.” He’s in shambles over an infatuation with someone he barely even knows — something that a good portion of the audience (myself included) can likely relate to. Indeed, the young girl next to me starts to snivel as soon as Holland emerges in a white tank top, showing off his ripped arm muscles, but I know that it is probably because of Shakespeare’s timeless and touching prose. Probably.
As it turns out, Holland’s extreme interpretation of Romeo’s lust for Rosaline is only a marker for things to come: between Romeo, Juliet (Francesca Amewudah-Rivers), the Nurse (Freema Agyeman) and the Friar (Michael Balogun), there is barely a dry eye on the stage for the play’s two and a half hour duration. Yet despite “Romeo & Juliet’s” vast emotions, Lloyd’s subversive staging — in which lines are delivered to the audience instead of to each other, props are basically eliminated and the use of video design becomes dizzying — gives those emotions nowhere to go. I suspect it’s this that has led to a majority of mixed reviews for Holland’s performance. Why have a big-name actor perform in such an intimate setting just to put him on a screen?
This isn’t Holland’s first time on stage — the 28-year-old got his start there, landing his first-ever professional role in Stephen Daldry’s “Billy Elliot the Musical” in 2008 — but it is his first time back in a decade away, during which he became a bona fide Hollywood star. Despite his roots, there is still a prevailing belief in some industry circles that starry actors turn to theater when they want a “rest” from film and TV. And though Holland did say in June 2023 that he planned to “take a year off” from acting due to the mental impact filming of the Apple TV+ series “The Crowded Room,” “Romeo & Juliet” clearly isn’t a break — he spends most of the show portraying a suicidal emotional wreck, a task which is not exactly easy.
To me, Holland’s Romeo is boyish in a way that’s reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio’s modern-day take, but with an extra dose of grit and instability that leads him down an even darker path. Dressed simply in a black sweatshirt and jeans — the rest of the cast also wears all black — and sporting a blunt haircut, Holland transforms from the nerdy-yet-charming facade of Peter Parker to one of pure, glassy-eyed desperation. The world of Lloyd’s “Romeo & Juliet” is dark and bleak, and Holland adapts to it surprisingly naturally, smoking cigarettes and covering himself in blood like he’s in some dystopian episode of “Skins.” At one point, blood drips down Holland’s face as if he wore the sticky substance as eyeliner, then it dries and cakes there, remaining for the rest of the play.
His chemistry with co-star Francesca Amewudah-Rivers — whose Juliet radiates strength and agency, while at the same time reminding the audience through witty line delivery that she is but a teenage girl — is palpable. However, though several kisses are shared, their most intimate exchanges (including the famous balcony scene) are not rendered facing each other, but to the audience, presenting a disconnect. The play’s action also fails to line up with the text at points, like when the Nurse desperately calls on Romeo to stand up after Juliet discovers he has murdered her cousin, Tybalt. Because each actor is speaking the lines into a standing mic, he is, awkwardly, already on his feet.
And, though it is admirable in its ambition, one of the play’s pivotal scenes — when Romeo finds out Juliet has apparently died — takes place on the roof of the theater, transmitted via video stream. Even when Holland does make it back down to the stage, the subtlety of the two lovers’ deaths, signified by them taking off the mics taped to their cheeks, ends the play with a whimper that opposes the bang that started it.
Outside after the performance, I’m once again reminded of a club as the street turns into a mosh pit, with throngs of fans taking their places at the stage door — behind metal barriers, of course — to anticipate Holland’s exit. It’s understood that he will not be taking pictures or signing autographs after his shows (how Hollywood!), but devotees still eagerly wait to catch just a glimpse of him, or better yet, a zoomed-in video on their phone. Indeed, Holland’s movie-star quality is on full display as he walks out, coffee mug in hand, waving to fans and mouthing “thank you” — he may have full-on said it, but the screams are too deafening to know for sure — before escaping in a luxury vehicle.
After Holland is gone, I stick around and chat to a few fans to get their take. As if unsure what to make of what they just experienced, and perhaps out of politeness, “interesting” and “different” emerge as key descriptors. Major, a 21-year-old English student who is studying abroad, says Holland did “a really good job interpreting” the role of Romeo “differently.”
Gabby, a 19-year-old on a trip for a college Shakespeare class, echoes that the play was “definitely very interesting” and “different than anything I’ve ever seen.”
Ruminating on the play’s unconventional staging, she adds: “We have all kinds of bawdy, crazy [versions of ‘Romeo & Juliet’], you know, the Baz Luhrmann movie. If you want spectacle, you watch that.”
Yes, this “Romeo & Juliet” may be stripped-back in nature, but with Holland at the center, it’s a spectacle all the same.
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