Breathing a brand new life and originality into Shakespeare’s much-told story, Matthew Bourne revives, refines and revises his gripping 2019 re-invention of Romeo and Juliet for this 2023 tour.
There’s innovation and a uncooked realism right here. The motion is confined to they gray, grim Verona Institute: half psychiatric facility, half juvenile detention centre. Juliet (Monique Jonas) is already an inmate right here, reeling from a sexual assault by the cruel Tybalt (Danny Reubens) when she first units eyes on Romeo (Rory Macleod), who has been ‘checked in’ by his politically bold mother and father. The pair formally meet at a ball organised by well-meaning vicar, Reverend Lawrence and a determined dance ensues.
Despite being such a well-known story, there are fascinating and intriguing departures from the acquainted narrative, sufficient to maintain us from turning into complacent and riveting the eye all through. Bourne is an financial story teller, driving the story all the way down to its mandatory elements and propelling the story alongside apace. There’s little time to breathe, that is fringe of the seat stuff. The well-known balcony scene is performed out on the gray steel ladders and concrete walkways of the dismal establishment, the pair evading the guard’s beaming searchlights. Despite understanding what’s to return, the ending when it does come, is sort of a knife to the center.
The solid are nearly totally clad in white, focussing the eye very a lot on the dance. There is an beautiful high quality to the motion: at instances tender, lyrical, passionate, determined, every artist imbues their character with an electrical vitality.
As with each Matthew Bourne manufacturing, Romeo and Juliet is an ideal sum of its elements, choreography, route, design, the beautiful dancers. Arresting, affecting, blistering and beguiling – that is one to not be missed.
Runs till 30 September 2023 | Image: Johan Persson
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