Shakespeare without words
A pyre for their desire Matthew Bourne’s “Romeo + Juliet” by Bondo Wyszpolski Take note of the title. Shakespeare’s name is nowhere to be found, and that’s because his play, his words, are not here. Instead, as director and choreographer Matthew Bourne has noted, his work is “a Romeo and Juliet-like story.” Currently gracing the stage of the Ahmanson Theatre, his variation on this classic tale is set within The Verona Institute “in the not-too-distant future.” So forget Italy, and you can forget the Capulets and the Montagues as well. And while there’s a cast list, it’s largely irrelevant because the performers rotate, with mostly three people assigned to each part, and on one evening they may be one character and on another evening someone else. The cast I saw is unlikely to be the one you’ll see. And besides, how are we to guess which dancer is Lavinia, or Martha, or Lennox, or Faith? The Verona Institute is a white-tiled and chain link-fenced mental ward, correction facility, reform school, its young men and women are inmates either way you slice it. Hannah Kremer and Bryony Pennington in ‘Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet’. Photos by Johan Persson (@perssonphotography)In this…
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