Vesturport - Romeo and Juliet

Joanne · **Posted:** Thu Sep 25, 2003 11:45 pm

Article from the Times of this circus version.

Quote:

TOO OFTEN routine stagings of Romeo and Juliet drain the hot young bloods of feud-ridden Verona, but the Icelandic troupe Vesturport wants the star-crossed lovers to be literally head over heels in love. This week its circus-themed production comes to the Young Vic in London where New York Splinter Group’s Shakespeare’s R&J is already reworking the play with its Catholic school setting.

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<small>[ 02 October 2003, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Thu Oct 02, 2003 7:12 am

Love is in the air
Charles Spencer for The Times reviews Romeo and Juliet at the Young Vic

At the start of this year I believed I would be quite happy if I never saw Romeo and Juliet again. The spectacle of young love loses some of its shine when you are deep in grumpy middle age, and, for all the beauty of the play's enamelled verse, I'd seen it so often that it had grown stale on me. Getting bored with great plays is one of the hazards of my peculiar line of work.

But all that has changed recently. First came the American production R&J (running at the Arts), set in a repressive Catholic boarding school and showing adolescent boys acting out the play by night as if it were a thrilling piece of samizdat literature.

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Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Thu Oct 02, 2003 7:23 am

Verona, Vikings, blood and guts
By Benedict Nightingale for The Times

AN ICELANDIC portrait of overheated love in torrid Verona? That sounds as probable as a Saharan version of Ibsen’s Brand, complete with wintry faces and a freezing avalanche. But from the moment we entered the Young Vic last night, to discover a Cirque du Soleil set-up on the rubbery walkway that passes for a stage, plus a podgy ringmaster boasting of Viking prowess and jokily berating us English for our “ugly women” — well, we knew that seasonal affective disorder was not about to set in.

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Joanne · **Posted:** Thu Oct 09, 2003 1:40 am

Review from The Independent.

Quote:

The daring young man on the flying trapeze is Shakespeare's Romeo, who proves that he is quite literally head-over-heels in love with Juliet in this acrobatic circus version of the play, brought to the Young Vic by Vesturport Theatre, from Iceland.

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Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:06 am

Romeo and Juliet
By Jeremy Austin for The Stage

The problem with a heavily conceptual piece of theatre is that the concept can overshadow the essence of the play. With its circus tricks and elements of theatre's current fad for the burlesque, this Icelandic company could be in danger of losing the sense of ultimate tragedy at the heart of Shakespeare's play.

And they almost do. Almost but not quite. Certainly there is a loss of the danger that lies behind the two teenagers from warring families embarking on a forbidden love affair.

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Vesturport - Romeo and Juliet

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