Today’s Romeo and Juliet from Competing Pizzerias

For me the most unexpected and greatest Oskaras Korsunovas’ discovery was the newly revealed conflict of “Romeo and Juliet”. Hatred, aggression and bile first of all accumulate inside a family and among friends – enemies only serve as a pretext for the break of fury and intolerance. If there are no enemies, one needs to find them. Mercutio first of all quarrels with Benvolio, Tybalt with Capulet, and the latter with Juliet. Thus, they are ready for hatred – they look for an enemy as for a drug. And on the contrary: a nurse has prepared Juliet and Friar Laurence has prepared Romeo for love. Having killed love with its aggression, the world has no future – in the finale the flour of death is sprinkled not only over Romeo and Juliet, but also over all the citizens of Verona. It’s only a young artist that can praise love so highly; this is why I’m sincerely glad that Korsunovas hasn’t got old.
Some time ago, in the 20th century, it was an insolent experiment of modern theatre to act William Shakespeare in contemporary costumes. Only later did it turn out that this modernity was acceptable for Shakespeare himself – the actors of the “Globe” theatre acting the characters of the Great Bard wore the costumes of his contemporaries.
In my opinion, the scenery of Jurate Paulekaite is a masterpiece of the setting art. Those two dressers with pots, pans, ladles and spoons is an unexpected novelty, which, however, isn’t a foreign body of Shakespeariana: Russian director and painter of the 20th century, Fiodor Komisarzevsky, in England staged “Macbeth” using aluminium setting. In the 21st century in Lithuania a similar masterpiece – aluminium Shakespeare was staged by Oskaras Korsunovas and Jurate Paulekaite.