Bourne Choreographs All-male Romeo, Romeo???

Matthew Bourne aims to reinvent Shakespeare’s best-known tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, as a gay love story, according to this week’s Sunday Times. The director-choreographer has made his name with his reinventions of classic ballets, including Nutcracker!, Cinderella, The Car Man and his now-legendary staging of Swan Lake, with its all-male corps of swans. For Romeo, Romeo - Bourne’s version of Prokofiev’s ballet based on the bard’s play – he plans to use an all-male cast, with Romeo following for a same-sex star-crossed lover. Bourne explained: “It’s more to do with dancing than sexuality. A male dancer, whether he’s gay or straight, fits into a relationship with a female partner very happily…. Making a convincing love duet, a romantic, sexual duet, for two men that is comfortable to watch – I don’t know if you can. I’ve never seen it before.” Bourne plans to workshop Romeo, Romeo this summer and, all going to plan, begin full rehearsals in 2008. Bourne’s current company, New Adventures, is resident at London’s Sadler’s Wells (See News, 20 Jul 2006), where the first revival of 2000’s The Car Man will run this July as part of a five-month UK tour.

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