A theatre review by Lauren Noble
It must have been about four years ago now that Audrey Jegu and I were sitting cross-legged on the floor of Lydia De Souza's home in Dubai. Lydia had just reappeared downstairs after spending story time with her two adorable children, joining us after they had fallen asleep for the night. It was an evening I will never forget. Partly because of the rush of energy between three creative females who each yearned for so much more from and for the performing arts scene in Dubai. Partly because it makes me nostalgic for a time when I was getting to know the real Lydia, an instinctual performer who was finally moving beyond her post-show blues after a successful run of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. Partly because it was around the same time that Audrey had started voicing her longing for deeper connections within the arts and amongst artists, and the cogs of her brilliant mind had certainly started turning towards conceptualising what is now her very own space called Thespis Gen Studios. However, the reason it has been replaying in my mind on repeat for the past few days is because it was also the night that Lydia De Souza told us about this idea that she had been working on very quietly behind the scenes. Her eyes started to sparkle and there was a sudden shift in the air. The electricity was palpable. I can distinctly recall the moment my body erupted into the goosebumps that actually caused me pain because it was the moment Lydia started reciting the prologue of the play. It was nothing I had not heard a million times before as a theatre nerd and a drama teacher, but what I had never heard until that very moment was the use of an awfully familiar beat which underpinned the iambic pentameter to perfection. It was the image of Lydia sitting upright at the coffee table, leaning into our shared yearning for more, adopting body percussion techniques to recreate the rhythm of We Will Rock You whilst simultaneously narrating the opening of Romeo and Juliet. I did not know what it would become back then, but I knew what I felt in that moment. Potential... impetuous, impulsive, iconic potential.
I make my way to the upper deck of the QE2 having battled my way through an additional half hour in Dubai traffic because even Waze could not keep up with the changes around Al Shindagha historical district. Audiences, for the love of Dionysus, please leave a full half hour before you think you need to because the opening moment of the production will have you rocking and rolling with the cast and crew which is something no one should miss because of roadworks! I exit the elevator, popping my head into the little museum installation outside The Golden Lion Pub, but am drawn inexorably down the plush hallways to the sound of the live band starting up as the performers prepare their curtain call on stage. The creative chaos of these moments is what I live for as a director. I have never been into this theatre before and the last time I visited the QE2 was for an Iftar when she first re-opened at the dry dock years ago. I enter the auditorium and my inner theatre nerd immediately becomes my outer theatre nerd, as I am transfixed by the postmodern hodgepodge of Edwardian, Vaudevillian and contemporary aesthetics all around me. I am unashamedly the type of patron who marvels at the quirks of every theatre I walk into. From the auditoriums and orchestra pits to the fly towers and equipment, I am enthralled by the history of my craft and the Theatre by QE2 boasts quite an interesting history at that. I make a mental note to research a little later and turn my attention to the scene playing out before me.
I manage to spot some familiar faces on stage as others bid me a hasty hello with a quickfire catch-up just before director, Alex Broun, calls for beginners. I settle into a chair and decide to take notes for the cast and crew whilst I formulate my article in support of another experimental production making its debut in Dubai. The night before last I had reached out to Lydia and asked her one simple question: what does it feel like to be on that side of the world as this version of Romeo and Juliet finally sees the light of day? In true Lydia fashion, the very first words out of her mouth in her podcast of a voicenote to me was all about everyone else first. She pays particular homage to someone I have heard her describe as her brother from another mother: Satya Baskaran, Lydia's long time collaborative partner and a member of her core creative crew in Dubai alongside Juan Mario Silva. Satya, Lydia and Mario were the trio that worked together and ended up winning a short play festival in Dubai five years ago, immediately falling into step with one another thereafter. Bringing many others into their community over the years, it has always been the bond forged between these three that exemplified the type of trailblazing work that Cross Bronx has became synonymous with. With Mario and Lydia now living outside of Dubai, Satya has been flying the flag for their vision and mission in this region on his own, although he is the very first to acknowledge the amazing community who have come together to uplift one another and support him as a producer for Romeo and Juliet.
"I am so proud of Satya and how he has shouldered almost all of the producing burden for Cross Bronx with this show that has been a baby of mine for a very long time. It is a surreal feeling to see something that you poured so much of your heart and soul into going up and you're not able to be there. It's like a knife in the heart. I guess I might liken it to watching your child grow up. I'd give anything to be in that room, but it is not meant to be." - Lydia DeSouza
I do not know how I would feel for the debut performance of Antigone Retold - which shares a host of features with Romeo and Juliet - to happen without me at the helm. To relinquish your own vision in favour of the vision of someone else is difficult for any creative, but especially those of us who are consciously creating experimental works that are collaborative in spirit. Sometimes that energy propels you into spaces of discomfort that must be worked through to become a better artist. Lydia comments on how grateful she is for the level of engagement with her original vision as the writer which came not only from Alex Broun as an experienced director but from many members of the cast and crew who all appear to have had various opportunities to engage with Lydia during their rehearsal process.
Satya and Lydia both tell me that this production would not have been possible without Alex Broun stepping in to ask whether the project was ongoing since Lydia had moved away. It was the ability for Cross Bronx to lay the directorial responsibility at Alex's door that allowed for a revival of this production almost a year after it had stagnated. I ask Satya about the otherwise lonely journey of producing theatrical works in this region and laugh (harder than I should) at the voicenote he sends back to me. It begins with a sound not unlike Dory attempting to speak whale in Finding Nemo! Simply put, surrounded as we each are with community and collaboration and creativity and comfort and even cross-continental support structures... producing is tough, folks! But in true trio fashion, Satya draws on his connection with Lydia and Mario in his actual answer:
We've always had this philosophy that speaks to a line from Hamlet. The play's the thing. It's about doing whatever we need to do and whatever we can do to make this play the best that it can be. It's just always been about that.
Satya discusses the act of producing in this region as both pain and pleasure, an interesting spin on the refrain I heard many times from the stage last night: "love of my life, you've hurt me." It's a duality I have engaged with myself as a self-starter in Dubai and continue to attempt to disrupt, on the pain side of the scales anyway. The level of potential, talent, skill and dedication to the very idea of more is something that I can feel when I sit in the auditorium watching this iteration come together. Satya and Cross Bronx, much like those of us working as part of Collab Company, are invested in the advancement of the arts not just through the creation of new content but through shifts in the very infrastructure that has so often thwarted the very best of our community to the point where they felt bound to exit the space of more obstacles than opportunities. There is a hunger in Satya's voice for Romeo and Juliet to be the turning point for renewal at Cross Bronx who now go by Studios. Why the change? I sit back and smile as I listen to this gifted actor go off on a soliloquy of sorts: "Because I want to do everything, Lauren! I want to do it all. I want to make films. I want to make theatre. I want to do radio plays. I want to do podcasts. I want to do workshops. I want to do everything, everything possible. And this is the reboot moment for Cross Bronx. It's yet another defining moment in our little family's history." I smile wider at that. What a warm, welcome sentiment...
As I sit observing the ebbs and flows of this production during their first tech run, I am acutely aware that the piece that sits before me is reminiscent of the style of a workshop production. There are moments of absolute clarity for me as I sit drinking in the shape of this production and I realise that the sparks that ignite my own emotional connection to this play are directly related to a convergence of intention, action and determination from members of the cast and crew. There are glimmers of that undeniable chemistry between Ryan Durand and Romina Satvat as the star-crossed lovers, adding a level of gravitas to a piece that requires us to love them as much as they love each other. Then there's the obvious commitment to one of my favourite Stanislavski sayings which my own acting lecturer back in South Africa would often remind us:
There are no small parts, only small actors.
Noticing the reactions between characters who otherwise speak just a few lines on stage is something I am drawn to. By and large, it is the characters reactions to the happenings all around them that establish the world of the play. This world needs to be rock and roll, punk and pop, with elevated highs and enlightened lows. Those performers who threw themselves wholeheartedly into their roles and reactions were part of the undercurrent which will gradually release itself at centrestage during their run. Oh, to be in the audience for that show! The big band numbers under the musical direction of Sam Randall became the space where the unmistakeable essence of Queen was brought to life in what felt like a reckless abandonment by the everyone on stage that was then amplified further by lead vocalist Emilie Rochford. The rockstar energy that took over the space at very specific moments provided me with an insight into the true rhythm of this tragic tale. It was within these moments that the performers tapped into the value of a collective artistic pique, where the band became the narrators and the actors were simply telling a different version of the same story below them. It is that carefully crafted relationship between old and new, traditional and contemporary, music and drama, tragedy and romance, gravitas and teenage angst, that I want to see more of in this run and the next iteration of this production... and I am certain there will be many in the years to come!
I realise with time and distance that the memory I so often revisit of that discussion which Audrey, Lydia and I had around that coffee table was Lydia's first foray into sharing her precious, precious idea to two of us who were on the outside of her Cross Bronx Crew. It was brave of her to elevator pitch a textually Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet interwoven with the lyrical genius of Freddie Mercury and Brian May to us, especially as we were all only just getting to know one another back then and the idea itself was immediately obvious to all of us as having value beyond our conversation. Having been on the receiving end of the shock and dismay of having entire pitch decks for Collab Company stolen, rebranded and presented as the work of others, I am uniquely qualified to speak on how burdensome it is to generate unique ideas for this region and be met with unscrupulous characters with zero qualms regarding the misappropriation of the intellectual property of creative minds. After all, what else would an artist actually require protection for if not the ideas we have for our own art? However, sitting in the auditorium last night, I was reminded of the value of letting down our guard and allowing others into the imaginarium that is our world and worldview as creatives. I saw the team from H2 Productions, James Cuningham of Fresco Formation, Matthew Corbett of the original Cross Bronx Crew, Beth Mitchinson of MTDXB and the entire cast and crew of Romeo and Juliet who radiated support for their colleagues both on stage and off. It was a moment that captured the essence of what I know Collab Company already does well in our collaborative methodology. It is always people first, production after, and it was a delight to see that illuminated so forcefully under the warm glow of the stage lights last night. Go watch Cross Bronx Studio harmonize with Shakespeare over 400 years after the original Romeo and Juliet was written. That way you can say that you were there for the start of something truly magical...
For tickets to the debut performance of Romeo and Juliet (14-16 February 2025) please visit Platinumlist For more info on Cross Bronx, give them a follow on socials: Instagram and Facebook.
© Lauren Noble for Collab Company | 2025
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