A stunning and timely dance adaptation of the world’s greatest love story
From the get go, I had goosebumps. Opening with Prokofiev’s terrific ‘Dance of the Knights’, the show continued with passion and astounding elegance. Not having adapted Shakespeare before, Matthew Bourne has done so with success in his reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet, showing at Sadler’s Wells now until 2nd September. Bourne reimagines the classic story and turns it into something utterly modern, compelling, and inventive.
Set to Prokofiev’s score, (with a live orchestra, which I loved), we follow the doomed fate of Romeo and Juliet, however instead of the expected Montagues VS Capulets, Bourne has chosen to replace the feuding families with a generation of teenagers, separated by the gender binaries. The set, designed by Lez Brotherston, is a static, white tiled, metal fenced institution, with the words ‘Verona Institute’ painted on the railings, and two central barred doors with the labels ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls’ above them. In Bourne’s words, “the Verona Institute is an imaginary place where young people seem to be incarcerated – is it a borstal? A school? A prison? A hospital? Or a place where some kind of brutal social experiment is taking place?”. It really is that ambiguous – we have no idea what sort of place these young people, all dressed in white, are inhabiting. For me, this kind of intentional ambiguity makes for an almost dystopian, futuristic feel – not being based in any specific era, or location, the stage feels like a limbo land where bad things happen. It really reminded me of films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and even Shutter Island.
Bourne explores what kinds of suffering and violence happen as a result of putting all these young people together, using the traditional plot and characters of Shakespeare’s story, controlled by the older generations, surveilled, and kept in the isolated, simple gender categories of ‘boys’ and girls’. In a way, this becomes more important than the actual relationship between Romeo and Juliet. The primary exploration of the performance is arguably the damaging consequences of the constant monitoring and control of younger generations who seek to challenge the barriers and limitations put in place by their elders. As Bourne states, it is “a stripped back Romeo and Juliet for, and about, a new generation”. And speaking from a younger perspective myself, Bourne does just that. He has steered contemporary dance in the direction it needs to go. He has retold a classic, long dominated by fusty and predictable retellings, and made it into something for and about young people, which resists catering for older audiences. I found there was something deeply relatable about the performance, something my generation can connect to. Its the emotional violence and confusion that young people suffer from, coming from older notions surrounding gender, expression, and freedom. The story of Romeo and Juliet allowed Bourne to also address issues surrounding mental health, homophobia, and abuse – all incredibly important issues that both young, and old, people are dealing with right now.
Both Romeo and Juliet, played by Paris Fitzpatrick and Cordelia Braithwaite, danced beautifully, embodying the uncontainable energy of adolescence which you rarely see so well executed on stage. The scenes in which they can’t keep their hands off each other, so wrapped up in lust and discovery, is conveyed through dance, silent expressions just using the movement of the body. It was so wonderful to watch. Terry Davies’s playful rearrangement of Prokofiev’s score only added to the youthful spirit of the story, along with the set, poking fun, possibly, at more established ways of doing things.
Whatever age you are, please don’t miss this! Not just important in the sociocultural sense, Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet is a display of marvellous choreography and story-telling.