“Sometimes you just have to look at it differently to see it better.”
Paul Virilio

Romeo and Juliet are a young couple who ceaselessly advance with their eyes set on the future and run over the present of their bodies that only come together in death, that is, in the absence (or at the height) of speed.
In this Romeo and Juliet we face a feeling of hatred towards Earth, its limits and boundaries, in a time marked by a dizzying speed that makes the bodies run toward their death. What we see is not what is "taking place". The apparent immobility of the actors, created through an illusionism effect, is permanently reconfigured by the words of William Shakespeare: affection, rhythm, relationships and spaces are constantly changing, they are presented from an non-place during a non-time that must be invented.
In this version of Romeo and Juliet, John Romão places five actors in an (almost) permanent image of suspension, in a reference to the illusionism universe that places bodies in non identified spaces - as Xu Zhen did - and other three actors moving on stage. The piece relies conceptually on antitheses between Eros and Thanatos and the myth of the meeting of the two characters in death: there is no touch or physical affection, there are no kisses or fights; a new space, an aerial geography must be invented, in order to reconstruct the body, its pain and its human functions.

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Text: William Shakespeare
Version: John Romão, based on the translation by Filomena Vasconcelos*
Direction and Sets: John Romão
Dramaturgy: John Romão and Marta Bernardes
With: João Arrais, João Cachola, João Jesus, Mariana Monteiro, Mariana Tengner Barros, Matamba Joaquim, Rodrigo Tomás
Lighting Design: Rui Monteiro
Sound Design: Daniel Romero
Costumes: Carolina Queirós Machado
Set Design Assistant: F. Ribeiro
Producer: Patrícia Soares | Produção d'Fusão 
Production: Colectivo 84
Coproduction: Teatro Nacional D. Maria II
Artistic Residency: O Espaço do Tempo

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This project was funded by the Ministry of Culture - Direcção Geral das Artes

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*Relógio d'Água / CETAPS - Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies

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