About That French Romeo and Juliet Musical

 

Have any of you heard of the 2001 French musical, Roméo et Juliette, de la Haine à l'Amour?

It is a show that I periodically remember exists and become obsessed with before forgetting it all over again.

In my first year of high school, I had a friend named Maxime. Maxime is half French, and his dad is a stage producer. One time, Maxime invited two other friends and me to see the Taipei performance of Roméo et Juliette, de la Haine à l'Amour with the original cast, which his dad worked on. We got to look at the sets and the backstage area up close, and we get to watch the show from the front row, FOR FREE!!! It was honestly one of the most amazing nights of my life.

At the time, I was only moderately into musical theatre, having only really loved one musical – Tom Hooper's 2012 film Les Misérables – which I watched in my second year of middle school. Roméo et Juliette, then, was the first ever musical I saw not through the language and medium of film, but as live theatre. It changed me as a person and made me the most obnoxious of theatre kids (even tho that archetype doesn't really exist in Taiwan). Because I saw this in the theatre, I am now cursed to love Hamilton.

 

The show is pretty popular in France and has toured many countries in Europe and Asia. Although aside from Quebec, it doesn't look like it has ever been to North America. Which is a big shame because this show is frankly iconic and would no doubt be a big hit with you emo fuckers and Phantom heads.

The show is a deliciously melodramatic rock opera retelling of (you guessed it) Romeo and Juliet. One where everyone yearns and pines and wails and moans, from minute one to minute done, from when they haine all the way to when they amour.

After a tender overture that disclose the tragic ending of the story, the stage lights up, and the ensemble sings the opening song, Vérone . Even before anyone sings a note, the show already oozes style and angst. The Montagues and the Capulets showed up in brightly coloured costumes. The leathery costumes are shiny and tightly fit, accented with over-the-top buckles and shoulder pads. It's giving X-Men and it's giving Star Trek, a look that is on-its-face queer and over-the-top but taken absolutely seriously. Camp aesthetic par-excellence.

   

      

 

The sets in the show are simple but very effective. The huge and immovable brutalist marble structures feel oppressive and weigh down on the show. The big openings of the structures also function like comic book panels, cutting up the space between events happening at the same time. Very cool use of the set.

   

 

My favourite song of the show is La haine, in which Lady Montague and Lady Capulet lament the senseless hatred that led to the destruction of so many lives and plead with the world to "listen to women's words."

This song is so good!!! I love the contrast of voices between the women, Lady Capulet clear and powerful, Lady Montague raspy and resentful. It blends so well together and conveys the emotion of the song perfectly.

   

   

The song also gave us this frankly iconic moment in which – to demonstrate that the Montagues and the Capulets are like marionettes controlled by hatred – the dancers pull the famous Jojo Siwa Karma's a Bitch dance move, 23 years before it was cool.  

 

I also really like the casting of Romeo. The man that plays him is such a generic handsome man. He looks like he stepped straight out of a bodice ripper novel. It's really hard to take him and his flowing long hair seriously, even when his best friend just died.

And in case you are wondering, the weird white woman is Death. She does interpretive dance in the background whenever something consequential comes up. Amazing stuff.

 

In conclusion, if you are into brooding men with long hair lamenting their situations through songs, if you like Phantom-style rock operas, or if you like the original Shakespeare play, I think this show might be for you. You can find the whole thing on YouTube, although the uploader interpolated the video to make it 50 fps, which gave me a huge headache when I watched it recently. Watch at your own risk.