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I checked the title.
But according to Godwin, if you look deep enough, you see the plot hinges on disease.
Originally, Godwins modern-dress production was scheduled for Londons National Theatre as a normal part of its normal season.
It was shot in an almost bare theater, which the team turned into the plays whole world.
Theres hardly a set one room, the rest simply props but the movies textures are surprisingly luxurious.
They are getting ready, and they soon launch into a dry run of the shows first fight scene.
As a few men mark the swordplay with wooden batons, the other cast members look on placidly.
Suddenly, an actor takes an unplanned swing, pulls a real knife, and the ensemble erupts Hey!
they cry, swarming forward to pull the two quarreling performers apart.
The camera itself seems to be fighting too.
The foggy air seems heavy.
Theres something very 2021 about the fact that the movie actually only runs for 90 minutes.
Who could bear a full two hours traffic?
Not us, not now.
The show is thus emotionally familiar but textually surprising.
It sounds just about as modern as something 500 years old can sound.
(The great Adrian Lester plays the Prince, and he barely gets to say anything at all.)
(When people fantasize about the summer after COVID, this is what theyre picturing.)
The frequent brawls tie the men into wriggling, erotic knots that only untie when someone dies.
There are certain costs to these choices.
Yet this air of moral and mental fragility also makes it the rightRomeo & Julietfor the pandemic era.
It captures our shutdown claustrophobia overheated, narcissistic, a little damaged.
And just as the last year has done, it warps our experience of time.
Its 90 minutes fly breathlessly by.
I lived through that time, IknowI did.
But the memory of it has turned into a dream already.
Great Performances: Romeo & Julietwill be onPBSstarting April 23.
