Dmitrij Matvejeh
AUSTRALIAN
Premiere
OKT/Vilnius City Theatre
Romeo and Juliet
Bursting with movement and colour, this vibrant adaptation
is Shakespeare as never seen before
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.
Equally skillful, the performances move seamlessly from the rambunctiousness
of a stage that teems with characters to the heartfelt exchanges of the ill-fated
lovers. Koršunovas’ Romeo and Juliet bursts with movement and colour.
Winner of the Grand Prix at Belgrade International Theatre Festival in 2004,
this Romeo and Juliet abounds with visual metaphor. The two kitchens serve
as pressure cookers of heated passion. Dough and flour are strewn with reckless
abandon; emotions and tempers rise. Amid the clanging cornucopia of pots,
pans, ladles and spoons a large cauldron of flour spins quietly, unceasingly:
churning love and fate slowly into tragedy in this place of passion and,
ultimately, death.
Koršunovas emerged as part of the generation of Eastern European
directors that attracted a lot of attention following the fall of the Berlin Wall
as the source of energy in new theatre. In 1997, he founded the Oskaras
Koršunovas Theatre (OKT/Vilnius City The