A performance of Romeo and Juliet! As envisioned by Matthew Bourne! I had enjoyed his Cinderella, his Red Shoes–so, why not try it? $10 ticket, a BARGAIN compared to the tickets for in-person performances. Virtual performances not quite as riveting, but good enough.
Unfortunately, having bought the ticket, I forgot about it and only remembered this morning that last night I was to have watched this cultural event. NO MATTER! With virtual performances, exact time is of no concern. So I clicked the button, turned it on.
AH.
We start with a long talk from Mr. Bourne about how he hesitated to do this, how BORING to do something that everyone has already done. But never fear! He would bring his own special vision…YOUTH..blah blah…
At this point I wandered away and cleared the dishwasher, loaded it with the breakfast dishes. Once the droning voice was replaced by music–Prokoviev’s gorgeous Romeo and Juliet!–I hastened back to my computer.
YIKES! We’re in some kind of asylum, the young dancers all in white uniforms, a brutal guard grabbing Juliet for forced hanky panky. NOT exactly what we signed up for.
The music has been chopped up, changed, as has the story. Of course all the reviews talked about how passionate and contemporary it was. Except for the one that said, “bleak, disturbed, troubled…”

Well, it is that.
But it is also powerful.
Dan Wright, who danced the part of the brutal guard, is simply compelling–a big man with terrifying tattoos and a shaved head. Juliet barely comes up to his shoulder.

There is one scene–a party!–when the inmates are suddenly allowed costumes, and they dance like a wave of the sea. We finally notice that they are beautiful young people.
But I admit that MOSTLY, they are writhing in anguish, their movements harsh and mechanical.
Romeo’s cold beautiful parents bring him to the –asylum? school?–write a big check, leave him there. The other lads strip off his clothes and push him into the white top and white jeans uniform. He meets Juliet–RAPTURE. They smile deliriously at one another, wrap themselves together. But there is never that moment of impossible joy that the wonderful duet in Kenneth Macmillan’s ballet gives us–brings tears to my eyes whenever I see it: the boy’s ecstatic leaps, the girl twirling into his arms.
Bourne’s ending is rather spectacularly ferocious. Blood everywhere!
But I clapped for them–well done! Certainly not the Romeo and Juliet I expected, but my $10 was not wasted.
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