Romeo and Juliet is without any doubt the most famous love story worldwide. "The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet" has been written 1597 by William Shakespeare basing on a novel by Arthur Brooke. Of course Second Life has creative people who made a virtual play happen. Becky (Canary Beck) and Harvey Crabsticks are director and producer of the performance company. Harvey created HUD's for he dance preformances and rezzers for fast set changing. Becky comments on the fun of creating a show: ":Mainly, it's developing the show itself - everything from identifying the story line, what scenes will tell the story, planning the music to match, then choreagraphing the scenes together."
The challenge was to change a theater piece ino something that the virtual audience will fascinate. The play tells the story on many levels to keep the visitors concentration. Music, choreography, voice and text chat: "Standard dance animations are put them together to match the music Every dance requires somewhere between 6-8 animations, all put together and timed perfectly to work for the whole song." The text parts of course are edited and shortened but are all taken from the original play. Becky :" Harvey and I then chose the key passages that would tell the story of that scene, then we edited them for brevity. But all of the text is Shakespeare's own. We had to time the text reader to display the text for each player at the right time in the scene and of course, the scene time was governed by the length of the song."
The choice of songs are an essential part of the play. I enever could imagine that contemporary music could fit so good. But the story is timesless. Becky: "We also wanted to add some humour to it as well. For example, we chose Michael Buble's "Fever" for the balcony scene, which is all about infatuation and how desperate Romeo is to meet his new found love. And "Let's get it on" by Jack Black for the sex scene, which really just says it all . We also wanted to have a good mix in there, from rock, to pop, to folk, electronica, country and classical." This way Romeo and Juliet turned to a musical story for everyone. Maybe not a play for purists, but I found it well done and entertaining.
The cast is a group of friends. The audience can feel the harmony between them. They do not change their avatars, they are actors. This way the play has a personal note. During the play the cast communicates constantly in group chat for perfect timing. To make as much plays happen as possible, they built up a second cast. Here are the dates of the next performances:
TODAY, Sunday August 11, 12 noon SLT, Company A
Saturday, August 17, 1pm SLT, Company B
Saturday, August 24, 1pm SLT, Company B
Saturday, August 31, 1pm SLT, Company B
Sunday, September 8, 12 noon SLT, Company A
Runtime: 120 minutes
Location: Basilique Playhouse
Stream address: http://67.207.134.134:8000/stream
Recommendations for viewing: Advanced Lighting Model: On, Light and Shadows: Sun/Moon and Projectors
Taxi: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Our%20Island/25/41/1264
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