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Feb. 16th, 2024 05:11 pmWe saw Duel Reality tonight, a show that billed itself accurately as "circus competition Romeo and Juliet."
What do I mean by 'circus competition?' well, the Montagues and the Capulets are the Red Team and the Blue Team, and they are aggressively engaged in a competitive sport, and the sport is Circus. We are doing aerials! We are building human pyramids! We are strutting around the stage flipping each other the bird and holding up our hand in the shape of an L on our foreheads while a poor stressed referee measures the exact precision of our pole slides! We are ANGRILY JUGGLING!
(... obviously we, as in me and
genarti and
sandrylene, were not doing any of this. But we did have seats on stage so it FELT a bit more like we were doing this than is usual. They gave us all colored armbands so we could cheer on Team Blue and occasionally a Team Blue circus person would run round to enthuse over what another Team Blue person was doing and give us a high five.)
What do I mean by 'Romeo and Juliet'? well, we had a forbidden love story between two members of the rival teams, of course, and also every so often a circus performer would valiantly recite a line of Shakespeare more or less at random, and also the soundtrack was mostly made up of what I can only call image songs that also string together various lines from the play over the circus scenes that vaguely correspond to the narrative. Tybalt's involved a lot of "king of cats".
Moments in the show when I had to cover my mouth not to laugh out loud:
- when the stressed-out referee character came out and performed a passionate diabolo juggling solo to the mournful strains of an image song with the lyrics "it's hard to be in the middle ... red is not my color .... blue isn't either .... all colors fade to grey ...."
- when Juliet, enraged against the dichotomy of Red and Blue, stalked round the stage angrily stripping the colored shirts off the rest of the cast to reveal black sports bras and undershirts On Everyone Except Romeo. Romeo simply did not get to have a shirt anymore.
- when (after Romeo's triumphant topless aerial solo) the cast explained that they decided they did not want their version to end in tragedy, and all started dancing onstage while Romeo and Juliet snuggled happily on a trapeze and the lead vocalist sang a bright, jazzy version of "for never was there a tale of more woe/than that of Juliet and her Romeo" on repeat
I did not laugh when Tybalt and Mercutio dueled by furiously doing competitive acrobatics off either end of a giant seesaw because it was extremely cool and effective and I did believe someone might die, but the fact the remains that Tybalt and Mercutio did duel on a giant seesaw and I am duty-bound to report it.
Here's the trailer, which gives you a strong sense of the various cool human tricks on display:
As we were leaving the theater, I said to my companions, "That was an incredible time and I'm so glad we saw it, and I AM DESPERATE TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE MUSICAL DECISIONS THAT WERE MADE. I don't understand! I need to understand!!"
Unfortunately, there is nothing at all about the musical choices in the program, so I am probably doomed never to understand. REALLY a great time though.
What do I mean by 'circus competition?' well, the Montagues and the Capulets are the Red Team and the Blue Team, and they are aggressively engaged in a competitive sport, and the sport is Circus. We are doing aerials! We are building human pyramids! We are strutting around the stage flipping each other the bird and holding up our hand in the shape of an L on our foreheads while a poor stressed referee measures the exact precision of our pole slides! We are ANGRILY JUGGLING!
(... obviously we, as in me and
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What do I mean by 'Romeo and Juliet'? well, we had a forbidden love story between two members of the rival teams, of course, and also every so often a circus performer would valiantly recite a line of Shakespeare more or less at random, and also the soundtrack was mostly made up of what I can only call image songs that also string together various lines from the play over the circus scenes that vaguely correspond to the narrative. Tybalt's involved a lot of "king of cats".
Moments in the show when I had to cover my mouth not to laugh out loud:
- when the stressed-out referee character came out and performed a passionate diabolo juggling solo to the mournful strains of an image song with the lyrics "it's hard to be in the middle ... red is not my color .... blue isn't either .... all colors fade to grey ...."
- when Juliet, enraged against the dichotomy of Red and Blue, stalked round the stage angrily stripping the colored shirts off the rest of the cast to reveal black sports bras and undershirts On Everyone Except Romeo. Romeo simply did not get to have a shirt anymore.
- when (after Romeo's triumphant topless aerial solo) the cast explained that they decided they did not want their version to end in tragedy, and all started dancing onstage while Romeo and Juliet snuggled happily on a trapeze and the lead vocalist sang a bright, jazzy version of "for never was there a tale of more woe/than that of Juliet and her Romeo" on repeat
I did not laugh when Tybalt and Mercutio dueled by furiously doing competitive acrobatics off either end of a giant seesaw because it was extremely cool and effective and I did believe someone might die, but the fact the remains that Tybalt and Mercutio did duel on a giant seesaw and I am duty-bound to report it.
Here's the trailer, which gives you a strong sense of the various cool human tricks on display:
As we were leaving the theater, I said to my companions, "That was an incredible time and I'm so glad we saw it, and I AM DESPERATE TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE MUSICAL DECISIONS THAT WERE MADE. I don't understand! I need to understand!!"
Unfortunately, there is nothing at all about the musical choices in the program, so I am probably doomed never to understand. REALLY a great time though.