Royal Shakespeare Company Perform Romeo and Juliet on Twitter
The play started on Saturday, has a cast of six and will take place over the next five weeks. Being the first project of its kind, this is a tremendously exciting foray into social media for theatre.
The play is shaping up to be more of a soap opera as we are given an insight into each of the characters. We watch Juliet and her sister, Jess_Nurse, chat to each other about their dead mother, Juliet decrying, “It annoys me that i dont know as much about mum as you do 
I wish i could have got to know her better “.
We see Tybalt’s anger and hatred of the Montague’s, “Before I go just one more happy thought for the day – MONTAGUE SCUM!”
They’ve introduced a new character, Jago, who has his own Tumblr page. A classmate of Juliet, I suspect that he will become our chorus/commentator as events unfold.
We’ve also had a tour of Juliet’s bedroom, via a Youtube video:
As I’ve watched this unravel over the last couple of days I’m not sure that Shakepeare was the best choice for the first Twitter play. I was initially excited by the concept, but by taking such a well known story I’m more intrigued by how they’re going to do it, rather than what is going to happen. I already know the characters and they are all acting as expected.
There is also no detection of Shakespeare at all and out of all his plays, Romeo and Juliet is by far the most widely interpreted into other mediums.
Bring on the first play written just for Twitter!
You can follow the play via this Twitter list:
http://twitter.com/tashaharrison/r-and-j
A couple of other sources on the play:
Romeo and Juliet get Twitter Treatment
The Royal Shakespeare Company performs Romeo and Juliet via Twitter
