2023-10-07 06:37:19
Every time they die in the end, and yet Romeo and Juliet cannot be killed. There was further proof of this on Friday evening when the theater on St. Peter’s Square reopened as the venue of the “Theater am Werk” under the direction of Esther Holland-Merten. “Romeo <3 Juliet" is the name of Cosmea Spelleken's version - a mixture of media, participatory and station theater that would look good in the "Theater der Jugend" subscription.
The ambition of the two-hour evening is to tell the tragic love story using modern means, without really radically changing it. So there is fighting and chatting, Romeo has 74 followers on Insta and Julia has a nurse who supports her with comfort and advice. Does that fit together? Yes, because it doesn’t go into too much depth.
At the beginning, the audience in the converted foyer forms the extra series – Party People at the party at the Capulets, where we all on the dance floor witness Romeo’s awkward and contemporary contact with his Juliet. With the Vienna debutant Luz Kaufman and the ex-member of the Junge Burg Jonny Hoff, the lovers are credibly anchored in today: not well-protected offspring of feuding patrician families, but young people who speak and write like their peers.
After getting to know each other, the audience is divided into two groups. Anyone who is a member of Team Julia immediately ends up in the theater hall, where the renovation has revealed an old, new attraction: the elegantly curved staircase that was once used in “Fatty’s Saloon”, which was covered by a grandstand during the decades of the theater’s use. Now it is used for the famous balcony scene, while Julia’s girls’ room is set up opposite, alongside the projection of the Instagram chats, in which the first contact is deepened in a contemporary way with a racing pulse and halting breath.
In cooperation with the Vienna Film Academy, Spelleken has enriched the station theater, in which the foyer changes twice, with short film scenes, while the whispered dialogue of the lovers after their first night is turned into a radio play. It’s all done sympathetically and ambitiously, without really being touching. There are no surprises, such as a happy ending. Because, nice punchline, the cell phone reception is so bad that Romeo only understands Father Lorenzo’s crucial message in a choppy way. That part with “poison” and “death”. Traditionally, people die twice in the crypt, surrounded by spectators. Shakespeare, however, is alive. Even if the battery is empty.
(S E R V I C E – “Romeo <3 Julia" von Cosmea Spelleken nach William Shakespeare. Inszenierung: Cosmea Spelleken, Bühne und Kostüm: Anna Kreinecker. Mit Joshua Bader, Jonny Hoff, Nils Hohenhövel, Luz Kaufman, Liam Noori und Jens Ole Schmieder. Theater am Werk. Petersplatz 1, Nächste Vorstellungen: 7., 9., 10., 12.,13.,14.10. Karten: 01 / 535 32 00. www.theater-am-werk.at)
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