ROMEO AND JULIET -- Bulgarian National Theatre "Ivan Vazov," Sofia, Bulgaria

script: William Shakespeare
director, production adaptation, musical setting: Lilia Abadjieva
cast: Vladimir Karamazov, Silvester Silvestrov, Vasil Ryahov, Yulian Vergov, Zakhary Baharoff, Kalojan Lenkov
set and costume design: Vassil Abadjiev
titles: Ivan Abadjiev
stage technicians: Stiliyan Penev Penev, Slavchco Dimitrov
sound technician: Valentina Matteeva

Shakespeare's tragedy of young lovers from rival families, as told by a cast of men, in Bulgarian. In the rain.

#####

This production seemed to create the most interest among the people of Santa Barbara, CA and the 750 seat theatre was sold out for every performance.

It was a remarkable work, a lot of fun, and I am very grateful for the inclusion of credit for an "adaptation." Like many of the works I saw this week, few were Shakespeare's play, but rather adaptations of Shakespeare's play.

This one managed to hold quite well to the story, but there was a fair amount of extra material here.

There was incredible energy with this cast, and from the opening sequence of carefully choreographed movements to a techno-fusion score, this show grabbed our attention at a high level, and never let us down. The sense of humor among the tragedy was brought out at every opportunity, and yet we somehow never lost the sense of the drama.

As the death scene approached, I wondered where they would go with it ... how could they top the energy of what they'd already been doing.

And then it rained.

And rained.

And rained.

It rained on the indoor stage, and must have rained for nearly fifteen minutes. The entire death scene took place in a downpour, creating the absolute perfect mood for this tragedy. But, in keeping with the rest of the production, even the death scene took on comic overtones as Romeo and Juliet took turns dying ... repeatedly. Rolling around and splashing in the pool of water that was being formed.

And the ending, which in Shakespeare leads one to believe that some goodness might come from this tragedy, was an incredibly high energy dance among all six men, in the rain, with strobe lighting effect, to loud, techno-pop-fusion music. It seemed to be the only way to top what they had already done, and it worked perfectly.

In the lobby after the show I heard someone exclaim, "They captured the mood of the show perfectly. It's the first time I ever felt anyone got it just right."

Well... I don't necessarily agree that it's the only time anyone got it "just right," but I do think that this production conveyed the mood of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet quite well, and that perhaps that was their intention. This production seemed to be a paraphrasing, capturing essence and mood extremely well.

English subtitles were displayed above the performance, but again, I found I didn't need them much (occassionally I read them in the scenes that were unique to this production).

The high energy performance from this cast was a perfect way for me to end my visit to the festival.

I would definitely recommend this production to anyone who has the opportunity of seeing it.