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A timeless masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet, an international cast of dancers, the Aterballetto, a choreographer, Mauro Bigonzetti, who is famous and appreciated the world over as well as the only Italian to have created choreography for the New York City Ballet and finally, a visual artist of international standing, Fabrizio Plessi. These are the ingredients with which one of Shakespeare’s most used (and most exploited) texts shines a new and original light on a previously unseen staging that is the result of the artistic collaboration between Bigonzetti and Plessi.
The choreography begins when the two young lovers are already dead and through a series of flashbacks returns to their first meeting in order to provide for a sort of happy ending. There is no balcony, no secret garden. The costumes include helmets, ultra-technological suits made of carbon fibre and protective elements inspired by body armour in place of tutus. There is not even space for Mercutio and Tybalt in Mauro Bigonzetti and Fabrizio Plessi’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Instead, it is dedicated to them: ten Romeos and ten Juliets who dance incessantly for an hour and a half, bringing to life a sensual show that is full of symbols. No duel with swords, because, as Bigonzetti observes, in the encounter-conflict of this love story, “each person puts his or her own body at risk”.
And it exactly the themes of passion, conflict, fate, love and death upon which these amplified Romeos and Juliets reflect, in a show, as Bigonzetti describes it, “with four hands and 40 legs”, an updated interpretation that excites and offers food for thought. Bigonzetti and Plessi rewind the tape of the story of these two legendary lovers, placing a fascinating reversed dramaturgical structure on stage, starting with an overturned opening scene, which features the protagonists who are already dead, on beds of burning lava, and then provides a surprising and overturned almost happy ending that leads back to the moment when they first meet. “For some time I have wanted to stage Romeo and Juliet, and it was exactly for this reason that I felt the need to take it on from unusual perspectives, stripping this classic story of all rhetoric and dressing it in different clothing, in order to reflect on modern themes such as meeting and conflict, and making all of the protagonists principal dancers,” states the choreographer. All of this takes place with an unusual dramaturgical structure for a work by Shakespeare: “The set, the music by Prokofiev and only ten Romeos and ten Juliets, nothing more. Our goal is to make a diagonal crossing of the work, which has its own structure and its own beauty.”
In this regard, adds Plessi: “Romeo and Juliet is a story with a late gothic flavour that has always provided fascination in our time, filling it, nonetheless, with superfluous elements, common places and kitsch deviations that do not traditionally belong to it. A modern interpretation provides usability and energy to the fabric of the story, purging it of all unnecessary elements without upsetting its original meaning: the search for the authentic value of love.” For this reason, the curtain opens on the naked bodies of the two young lovers lying on a flaming bed of coals: “It is the incarnation of death, a starting point for a series of flashbacks that lead to their first meeting, as if their paths could cross again and the two could be reborn from their love.” All of this takes place with an unusual dramaturgical structure for a work by Shakespeare: “The set, the music by Prokofiev and only ten Romeos and ten Juliets, nothing more. Our goal is to make a diagonal crossing of the work, which has its own structure and its own beauty.”
At the mercy of their hearts, which they have no hope of controlling, Romeo and Juliet experience an important meeting-conflict that is impassioned and physical because, as Bigonzetti states, “we do not have airbags that can protect our souls when we crash into the wall that is love.”

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