And now I'm going to talk about the ballet Romeo and Juliet: it was wonderful in a gleeful, surprising way.

I saw the Royal NZ Ballet do Romeo and Juliet years ago.. they did it in the Old Verona style with venetian masks and heavy velvet Italian structure and it was in a stunningly beautifully rich tapestry'd music to give you goosebumps kinda way. It was fabulous then. Breathtakingly wonderful.

This time, they interpreted the Play as Baz Luhrmann did in the modern Italy with short, expensive skirts, high-heeled muscular legs and gucci sunglasses. The sets were very Matisse - not in his 'painterly' way but in his 'tiled church' way - white tiles and huge photographic backdrops. As if you sat at your desk to design the set by cutting a couple of pictures from a glossy magazine, and then pencil'd on top of that.. then increased the size of that drawing up to stage size. If that makes sense. Which i'm sure it doesnt. The sets were simple, clean, reusable, modular. For instance, Juliet's bed being changed into the cold stone her body lies on in the crypt, with the simple retangular backdrop decending with its cross a negative shape at the death beds head. (not explaining this very well, i need to draw it on paper as I speak) The music was still as goosebumpy and the costumes were still marvellous.. and the fight scenes were of knives and daggers and not swords and duelling as before but still simply marvellous - and that the dancers oompf'd and arrg'd as they battled so the [usual] silence of the ballet was not so anymore...and they employed a technique I first saw the company use in The Hunchback of Notre Dam (or however you spell that) where the main characters continue to dance/fight in 'real time' and the rest of the cast move in slow motion.. it's really wonderful to be caught up in the magic of it and the moderness of it all. It was fabulous all over again, but in a cleaner, breathlessly wonderful kinda way.

and Romeo [Alex Wagner] is a babe.. esp in the bedroom scene and esp. in his CKs.

the lighting was fabulous

and I'm going to stop talking now.