Romeo & Julia - Theater Oostpool

Theater en toneel

Based on a growing need for hope and connection, Char Li Chung shows with his Romeo and Juliet that Shakespeare's world-famous classic is more current than ever. Shakespeare didn't write this story to reassure us, he wrote it to wake us up. Because how can you love in a world that has taught you to hate?

The young Romeo and Juliet find themselves on opposite sides of a cultural and religious fault line. For generations their families have lived in an all-consuming conflict. But when Romeo and Juliet see each other, they fall in love instantly. Going against the grain, they choose love.

Love as a refusal to adopt hatred, as a radical alternative and as an ode to the possibility to choose
differently. Vulnerable, dangerous and necessary.

Romeo and Juliet holds up a mirror to us. Not to ask which side you are on, but whether you are willing to let go of the role of enemy.

Last season, director Char Li Chung, known for, among others, The Banana Generation and
Cock, very successfully tackled Puccini's classic Madame Butterfly in collaboration with
writers Vera Morina and Sun Li. For Romeo and Juliet, Chung collaborates again with Morina, this time
on a contemporary adaptation that remains close to the language of Shakespeare's original.