Love – passionate, intense, aching and pulsating – sits at the heart of director Pat Kiernan’s interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, staged as a co-production with Cork Opera House. Within a stripped, pared-back, post-modern set, Kiernan leaves space for the central preoccupation of the play – the uncomplicated love of two young people whose relationship is destroyed by the rigid inflexibility of their parents and by society itself.

It’s a universal tale, recognisable to many who have ever been in love: if it’s not family pressure complicating a situation, it can be societal, or indeed, the pressure on a relationship can often come from within. By focusing so intensively on this aspect of Shakespeare’s most popular work, Kiernan and Corcadorca could reasonably expect to engage and connect with an audience.

In order to do so, however, the casting of the leads has to be spot on. There is no way around this, as this is a production that doesn’t want its audience distracted by setting or location – Roma Patel’s set is akin to a piece of modernist architecture, white, smooth and blocky; and even though there are unique reasons to remember the work – Kiernan has worked with a video designer to screen on occasions large-scale images of facial expressions onto the walls of the set, which prove as visually alluring as the stylised nature of much of the action: the fights, the masked ball and Romeo and Juliet’s love scene – there is no real intent to angle or fashion the production in a particular manner, save to pull everything back to intensify the one focus.

A lot, therefore, is riding on the performances of 16-year-old Jay Duffy (son to former Boyzone singer Keith) who marks his professional stage debut with the show, and 18-year-old Aisling Franciosi, who has been working professionally since 2009. The leads certainly look the part: Kiernan has made the brave decision to cast teenage actors of less experience rather than more experienced actors attempting to appear younger, and it is refreshing to watch a Juliet, and, especially - in this instance - a Romeo, who present no hint of world-weariness or have any form of cynicism glinting from their eyes.

On this stage, however, the passion between the two leads is missing. At no point did I believe in their burning desire for one another. When Romeo tells Juliet that “stony limits cannot hold love out,” or “what love can do that dares love attempt”, there was no sense of urgency, or intensity, or of anything much being at stake. The emotion behind the words was, put simply, not there.

It may, of course, have been the case that, as with many productions of Shakespeare in this country, the issue of enunciating and invigorating the verse has had a hobbling impact on the young actors. Nonetheless, one can contrast the relationship between Romeo and Juliet with Duffy’s scenes with his male counterparts: Benvolio (Charlie Kelly) and Mercutio (John Doran). There is an authenticity in the interaction among the three: you believe them when they cavort, frolick, mess about. Doran, as Mercutio, has a great role, and he plays the clown brilliantly, even though he doesn’t quite manage the transition into bitterness at the point of Mercutio’s death. Contemporary lives move so differently now to the way they must have done in Shakespeare’s time: a 14-year-old (as Romeo was purported to be) is no more than a child in our society, as opposed to a youth, pulsating with hormones and possibility.

There is a greater ring of truth in the performance of Franciosi, who has two years more life experience than Duffy. Around the two leads, there is also some notable acting – aside from Doran, Dorothy Duffy looks to be having a great time and is thoroughly enjoyable to watch as Juliet’s brusquely caring Nurse, while Malcolm Adams is compelling – as is ever the case with this actor – in the role of the Prince.

Pat Kiernan is a director of great talent, and sometimes vision. This is a production unafraid to take risks: if the risks at times backfire it is surely still a better thing than to never have taken any risks at all.

Rachel Andrews is an arts journalist and critic based in Cork.