By John Robert Ladd
I've been holding on to this story for a while, because I wasn't sure how I felt about the whole idea when I first saw the Mashable article on the subject. Basically, the Royal Shakespeare Company, one of the most well-known play-making entities in the Shakespeare world, is producing an updated version of Romeo and Juliet conducted entirely via social media. It's called 'Such Tweet Sorrow,' and like the original play, the story of this production gets a little convoluted, but remains captivating.
I mention this now because I haven't heard a lot of chatter about the project, even though the participants are now about 3 weeks into their five-week run [the production opened on April 10th]. It's perhaps because this project has been more widely publicized in the UK, where it draws all of its funding and resources through a great partnership of organizations. Still, I feel like this story hasn't gotten as much play as it should considering the techniques employed. Here it is in their own words:
Storytelling has been conducted via Twitter before [Remember Neil Gaiman's collaborative short story?], and Twitter remains the primary medium for this production. What's interesting is that this isn't an act of composition on Twitter, but rather a retelling of a story that remains lodged in the public consciousness. And furthermore it's my understanding that, though the actors who run the various Twitter accounts have been given extensive scripts and backgrounds for their characters, the actual tweets themselves are being largely improvised. Improvisational social media theatre? I can get behind that.
Another thing I enjoy about this story is that the stage doesn't stop at Twitter, but extends onto other social media outlets. Juliet's YouTube videos add a lot, and give the characters plenty to talk about. And the Tumblr blog from the mysterious character Jago is perhaps my favorite part of the production, his snarky, stalkerish commentary fitting the teen angst tone of the tweets perfectly. [n.b. I'm not sure where Jago fits in relationship to the original play. The name seems like a play on Iago, and so does the personality of the character. As far as plot, he may be analogous to Count Paris? The material hasn't given me enough to decide.]
I'm in love with the idea of this project, but I do have a few misgivings about it. I land squarely in the target audience for something like this, as a web enthusiast and Shakespeare devotee, but it hasn't been holding my interest. From the lack of attention its been getting, I'm assuming that I'm not alone. My instinct is this may have something to do with the kind of update the writers chose.
I'm certainly not against updated Shakespeare [in recent teen film, this was done most effectively with She's the Man], but there's a careful balance that has to be maintained. Updates should do one of two things: either tweak the story only slightly or entirely change it, keeping only the barest bones of the plot. Shakespeare certainly wouldn't mind appropriation of his work in this way, as it's how he obtained most of his plots in the first place. But a halfway reinterpretation leaves the audience with a little confusion. This is what happened to the overwrought Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle 'Romeo + Juliet,' and while Such Tweet Sorrow is definitely better than that I remain a little disinterested as the plot unfolds.
It may also have something to do with the play the RSC chose. Romeo and Juliet is the obvious choice because it is so well-known, but such trodden ground and the relatively simple story might not be making such a fertile landscape for this kind of adaptation. I'd definitely be more interested to see more complex characters and plots tackled with a different play from Shakespeare's oeuvre [maybe that's why I'm so interested in Jago's blog].
I do think this production is worth keeping an eye on. This is the kind of storytelling I think we'll see more of in the future, and we can learn a lot from the relative successes of the first forays into social media as stage. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on Such Tweet Sorrow as it hits its dramatic heights in the next fortnight.
05 July 2010 at 12:50 EDT | 
John Robert Ladd is the founder and editor of Paradise Tossed. He's a writer, poetry student, and confirmed geek living in Washington, DC. The most notable objects of his geekery include formal poems, postmodern plays, crossword puzzles, the Internet, and dead languages. He is also the cohost of the PT Podcast, and the one who tweets. Literally and figuratively, he wears many hats.
