The OKT/Vilnius City Theatre company brings their outstanding interpretation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet all the way from Lithuania to Melbourne's International Festival of the Arts.
In his contemporary reworking of Romeo and Juliet, Lithuanian director Oskaras Koršunovas sets the infamous conflict between the Capulets and Montagues in rival pizzerias. Koršunovas deftly handles both the humour and dark tragedy of this famous work, moving artfully from the crude and hilarious to the delicate and sombre.
Performed in Lithuanian with English surtitles
Melbourne International Arts Festival
I loved this production! The set was fantastic, flexible, symbolic, textured and utilised in so many different ways. The performances were really good, especially Julietta - expressive and heartfelt. For the first time in all the adaptations of this play, I believed she was 15 years old. She then gained a maturity after her wedding and subsequent wedding night - it was a brilliant performance.
Shakes (still writing this post.. just drinking tequila at the same time so things have come unfenced)
The language no longer took centre stage - it was removed from the equation by my inability to understand Lithuanian. I didn't read the subtitles (Romeo and Juliet: I know the story) so focused on the story-telling, on the acting, on the production.
I saw the story of the two families; the conflict and the divisions between the Capulets and Montegues. The two young lovers were no longer had my full attention - their parents did, their relatives, the cyclone of their environment. Swirling in flour dust clouds - and in the end (and we all know the end) did the families learn anything? did they understand the price they paid? I don't believe they did.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.