Romeo Es Julia - Blog Posts
It was a musical, but...I am not beating the allegations.
I shall take this as an opportunity to ramble about Rómeó és Júlia, the subject of said allegations by @unstark, who may have created a monster (/j; thank you for doing so).
The first thing to know is that I haven't read Romeo and Juliet since middle school and liked it well enough then but wasn't really enthused because I liked the poetic elements but found the romance somewhat grating. However, I am a theater kid/opera nerd at heart, and looking at different versions of things and analyzing the connections, sometimes to an obsessive degree, is one of the things I live for (that's part of the lure of Arthuriana).
The second is that Rómeó és Júlia (ResJ) is fantastic, in large part because the cast is incredibly talented. I've seen all or a good portion of several different language versions of the musical, which originated in France as Roméo et Juliette (RetJ), and they all have good or decent but reasonably similar Juliets and mostly fine to mediocre Romeos. In addition to having a good Juliet, this Romeo, played by Dolhai Attila, was quite charming as an actor as well as a great singer so the rest have been mostly downhill. I am afraid, though, that like most of the people on ResJ/RetJ Tumblr, the characters I found most interesting were Mercutio and Tybalt, who both vary wildly from production to production. In ResJ, Mercutio (who fans call Zolicutio because he's played by Zoltán Bereczki) is a force of nature, and I did not properly appreciate that the first time I watched it. He sings, dances almost constantly, acts well, and raps in Magyar, and he never seems to stop or slack in energy until he dies. Tybalt, on the other hand, is a deeply tortured soul who's occasionally comedic in his melodrama (he does the Mr. Bean walk once) but has genuine pathos. I originally watched the first half without subtitles and did not realize the...ahem...concerning nature of his thoughts about Juliet, but that's in almost every version of the musical, and it is not as big a trigger warning as the obvious one, which is that Romeo and Juliet includes onstage suicide and murder, as well as references to sexual content. This is probably the first thing anyone learns about Romeo and Juliet, but I thought I should put that out there to be safe. Anyway, Szilveszter Szabó was vastly different than how I pictured Tybalt while reading the play, but he was excellent and brought a new perspective to the character. You love to see it. Also, ResJ Benvolio is a punk with the heart of a golden retriever, another far-from-the-play take which works in its context.
Now, the 2010 French version. I followed ResJ with the RetJ revival because John Eyzen's Mercutio is the second most popular Mercutio on Tumblr, after the inimitable Zolicutio, and I wanted to see what the hype was about. He is vastly, vastly different, both from how I imagined Mercutio and how Mercutio is in any other production. Eycutio alternates between stillness and over-the-top energy. He may or may not be bad mental illness rep. He may or may not be beholden to the madness-inducing entities of Chaos. Eyzen fully embraced the vibes of "La Follie" and the Queen Mab speech Mercutio has in Shakespeare to create a very unstable dude who revels in unpredictability and danger to a greater degree than Zolicutio and has probably won Best-Haired Veronese Man three years in a row. He has a love/hate relationship with Tybalt and flirts with him while fighting. (Zolicutio also flirts with Tybalt, but less in a I've-secretly-liked-you-since-we-were-twelve-but-also-hate-you-and-we-kissed-at-a-party-once-but-you-pretend-you-don't-remember-and-I'm-going-to-make-that-hard-for-you way than an I-bet-you're-into-me-and-also-that-you'll-hate-this-and-I-could-be-into-you-but-it's-not-clear-and-I-canonically-kissed-Romeo-but-didn't-seem-serious-about-it-and-I-rap-about-not-liking-romance-and-it-might-be-to-hide/drown/prevent-the-pain-or-I-might-be-aroallo-and-thriving way). Tim Ross's 2nd Tybalt looks and acts like the unlikely and maltreated test-tube child of George Michael and Cruella de Vil, and I'm going to leave it about that, because I have rambled too long without mentioning that Romeo's costume is exceptionally terrible in this one, that I really did not like Escalus, and that the Nurse was fantastic. All in all, what this one has to recommend it is the excellent Nurse, plus Tybalt and Mercutio's unevenly acted but ultimately interesting dynamic, which is the stuff of Fanlore pages.
I have not watched all of the 2001 French original, even though many people say Cécilia Cara is the best Juliet, because the other Juliets are also good and apparently a bald Mercutio is one thing I cannot take. (I could under certain conditions. If he were a young cancer patient, then that would add an urgency to his fervor for living life to the fullest, and a suspicion that he's going to die painfully soon whatever he does could influence his recklessness, but him being considerably older and more sophisticated than Romeo is weird). I might watch more of it, but it's low priority.
Apart from those, I've watched large parts of the Italian and Israeli ones, which I prefer to the French ones in acting but not in singing. The Italian one is a lot more dramatic than the Israeli one, which is maybe the least dramatic RetJ variant ever but pulls it off really well. The characters seem like normal people you would meet who try their best but get caught up in a tragedy bigger than they can understand. Of special note, as usual, is that ever-shifting scene, the duel between Mercutio and Tybalt, and this is the most original take on it I've seen. What sets it apart is that THEY DON'T EVEN DISLIKE EACH OTHER. You get the sense that they've had a lighthearted rivalry since they were kids but they're sort of friends and it's all a game to them. It's also the only version I've seen where those two actually have fencing swords, so the fight looks more realistic, emphasizing that they're playing with fire. When he realizes Mercutio is dying, Tybalt is visibly devastated and seems to lose the will to live. I don't usually cry at movies or shows, but that is the version which brought me the closest to crying.
I would like to watch the 2019 Toho version, since it comes highly recommended, but am not sure where to and might have to wait a while on that one. After I'm done with the Italian one, I intend to watch the Russian one, the German one, and the alternate cast recording of the Hungarian one. As for the English one...well, I've listened to a bit of it, and it was awful.
If you want to watch multiple versions at once or see which ones you might like, there is a great playlist on YouTube where someone edited together parts of the videos of different versions. If you want an incoherent-without-watching-the-full-thing but possibly still entertaining look into it, watch this compilation someone made, which is extremely funny if you've actually seen the full musical.
If you've read this entire semi-coherent ramble, you're a trooper. I hope it was vaguely interesting. Have a wonderful day!
it’s really easy to become obsessed with a shakespeare play you just have to watch one version of it and then read the play and then go mad trying to watch every possible version of it you can find and then study several centuries worth of performance history and controversy
so uh... i crochet
more specifically dolls
more specifically romeo and juliet dolls.
this is the whole gang :)
so thats mercutio
and benvolio
say hi to juliet
tybalt, tybalt!
last but not least, romeo
character designs vaguely from the 1968 movie because its my favorite, but i also took some inspo from retj (i wanted tybalt's hair to look sorta like tom ross' in the 2010 revival but also szabo p szilveszter because i love him too)
my mom and i 3d printed minecraft swords for mercutio and tybalt. i think that might be my favorite part.
benvolio and mercutio also have pride scarves because i said so (and because their necks wont stay up otherwise)
so yeah. i thought i'd share with the class.
omg literally me tho 😝
(hi tybalt hows my favorite kitty cat doing???)
I’m him I’m him I’m him I’m hi-
Tybalt, je suis Tybalt, you could say iejdjrfjrn
I am donee!! For now, i still want to think of extra details and stuff to give the costume more character but rn im really happy with it!!
imagine these two in one romeo and juliet musical
Rómeó és Júlia Textposts
I met these two guys at a bar and their names were also Mercutio isn’t that funny
Day 11: If you’re Mercutio and I’m Mercutio, who is driving the plane
was anyone going to tell me they added some songs from Rómeó és Júlia to spotify or was i supposed to find them myself
(note that only the four songs visible in the screenshot are what they say they are. Ez a kéz utolér is actually the last song including the bows medley, and Párbaj is actually Párisz's song + Hogy mondjam el)
— Roméo et Juliette Comparison (Austrian & Hungarian Productions) —
Left: Hungarian 2004
Right: Austrian 2005
1. Gondolj házasságra / Freu Dich auf die Hochzeit (Tu dois te marier)
2. Erkely duett / Der Balkon (Le Balcon)
3. Szívből Szeretni / Liebe (Aimer)
4. A Párbaj / Das Duell (Le Duel)
5. Rómeó Halála / Romeos Tod (La Mort de Romeo)
Hi me again. Realized I never shared this to tumblr dot com. It’s a redraw with a fav silly moment between BZ and SZpSZ
Nikita Braga as Romeo in Roméo et Juliette
(left) Budapest, Hungary & (right) St. Petersburg, Russia
Nikita & Jenes Kitti (June 2024)
Nikita & Aleksandra Kasparova (Dec 2024)
Aimer — Aleksandr Kazmin and Aleksandra Kasparova // Ромео и Джульетта / Roméo et Juliette Preview. The entire cast is so good!!
Ромео и Джульетта / Roméo et Juliette Dress Rehearsals
Costumes by Rita Velich (Hungary)
Juliette's Nurse – Elena Gazaeva
Lady Capulet – Natalia Dievskaya, Anastasia Vishnevskaya
Romeo – Vladislav Getze
Tybalt – Maxim Kazakov
Friar Laurent – Rostislav Kolpakov
Lady Montague – Maria Lagatskaya-Zimina
The official Russian Production of Roméo et Juliette / Мюзикл «Ромео и Джульетта» is set to premiere at the St. Petersburg Theatre of Musical Comedy (Muzcomedy)
This version is also directed/produced by KERO © Rómeó és Júlia (Hungary) so most likely it will be similar in staging to the one in Budapest Operetta Theatre.
Main Cast:
Romeo — Nikita Braga, Aleksandr Kazmin, Vladislav Getze
Juliette — Aleksandra Kasparova, Polina Belyaeva
Le Prince de Vérone — Kirill Gordeev, Dmitry Ermak, Ivan Ozhogin, Vladimir Yarosh
Mercutio — Ruslan Iskenderov, Nikita Slednev
Benvolio — Artem Mizhenkov, Andrey Suntsov
Tybalt — Stanislav Baksaraev, Maxim Kazakov
Frère Laurent — Rostislav Kolpakov, Ivan Ozhogin, Aleksandr Sukhanov
La Nurse — Agata Vavilova, Elena Gazaeva
The lineups along with the final cast will be updated here.