If you’ve seen any of director Kip Williams’s “cine-theatre” works for the Sydney Theatre Company in recent years, chances are you’ll feel right at home watching choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s Romeo and Juliet Suite, a condensed version of Shakespeare’s story told in contemporary-classical dance, set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev and featuring video transmitted live to onstage screens.
Presented by Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project and performed by a company of 12, the story of the star-cross’d lovers is cut to its barest bones. There are no warring “houses” here, no great sense of prior conflict. Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt and Mercutio are identifiable (if you have some high school basics still in your head), but the rest of Shakespeare’s characters have failed to make the cut. There’s no Friar Lawrence to plot a path to wedlock; no Nurse dispensing advice to her young charge; no dad threatening exile and death. Gone too are many of the original plot points, including the lovers’ wedding. The piece takes a little over 80 minutes to unfold.
