Romeo & Juliet

In line with my sister's desire to see more shows, we went to see Romeo & Juliet last week. We are generally of the opinion that ballet is a bunch of crap and would be a particularly hideous way to spend an evening. However, neither of us have been to a ballet before, so we figured we should at least see one so that when we explain how crap it actually is, we are actually speaking from experience rather than pulling it out of our arses.

Sadly, it was actually quite decent. We bought the programme so we could follow the story better, since pretty much all we could remember of Romeo & Juliet was the balcony scene and that they both die. I'm still a bit contemptuous of performance art which requires you to know the story in advance in order to understand the performance, but I suppose I can get over it.

The costumes were great, the dancing was good, and everyone had a fantastic ass. Seriously, both males and females had nice asses. I'm not really an ass person, but it was noticable. Clearly ballet dancing does something to your ass to make it look great.

I thought the fighting scenes could have used a little bit more realism, look a little bit more like fighting than dancing, but they were ok. The fake blood was nice and effective, especially when Romeo slits the other guy's throat. Juliet could have used a little bit at the end though when she supposedly stabs herself and then you see her untouched white dress.

The death scenes early on were very long and drawn out, especially Mercutio's. But then, this is Shakespeare I guess - people take pages and pages of dialog before they finally shut up and die.

The 'sex' scene was pretty good - both of them dancing only in their underwear. My sister had a few critiques of Romeo's choice of underwear design, but it wasn't bad at all.

The corpse dancing scene was also great - where Romeo dances with Juliet while she's unconscious after taking the sleeping potion. The way he is able to dance with her while her completely limp is very spectacular.

I think my opinion is slightly coloured by the fact that I saw Cinderella on Ice in the same theatre the week before. Compared to that, the ballet seems so incredibly slow. Romeo slowly lifts Juliet up and holds her still for a few seconds. Everyone gasps. But I'm thinking how in the same length of time Prince Charming lifted up Cinderella and spun her three times around the stage.

But basically, I did enjoy it. I don't think it was exceptional value for money at $85, but I would be willing to go to another one. Just not very often.