Romeo & Juliet (2019) - Matthew Bourne
Matthew Bourne's production of Romeo and Juliet follows the same ideas and narrative of the original Shakespeare play. Instead of being set in Verona, it is set in a mental hospital in the possible near future where the girls and boys are split in a society that want to keep that social divide.
Romeo and Juliet are both trapped in this asylum and are constantly barraged by the brutality of the guards and are kept under the worried watch of their parents who hope for their illnesses to be cured. Juliet in this production has been sexually assaulted and Romeo suffers from ADHD and OCD. Their forbidden love from the constraints of society still causes the eponymous characters to commit suicide at the end of the play.
Bourne wanted to keep true to the youth aspect of the production, keeping all actors/actresses between the ages of 16 and 19.
Themes
The themes are very close and similar to the original play:
- Love
- Mental Health
- Abuse
- Violence
- Conflict
- Hate
Social Context
In today's society there are many discussions about mental health and abuse; it is a very sensitive and talked about subject. Bourne may have set Romeo and Juliet like this to make the story more relatable to a much wider audience such as teenagers and young adults.
Cultural Context
Today's culture is very diverse due to styles like pop, indie, goth etc. and ideas in our modern society. Bourne wanted his production to unique and explore the story of Romeo and Juliet in a very contemporary sense. Through the dances, every individual can interpret certain aspects of the story in their own creative ideologies.
Political Context
All politics in the world are monitored by governments and are made up of people from different social classes and circumstances and upbringings. There has been many uprisings in political tension surrounding gender equality and splits of which many have been settled and some disputed, for example with equal roles we, in the UK, have had a female Prime Minister. Bourne's production plays solely on the idea of gender with the characters being split by their society in the asylum.
Matthew Bourne's Romeo and Juliet has only recently been released. It is being performed in Sadler Wells theatre and has been filmed and showed in movie theatres across the UK. It has been reviewed greatly by The Daily Telegraph and is already getting praise from across the country.
