#R</3J retells the story of the star-crossed lovers transforming Verona into a concrete jungle at the heart of Metro Manila – teeming with corruption, revolt, advertisements, sex, social media and condominium units. This theatrical project seeks to dramatize, through a pastiche of movement, music, intertext, video and design, the postmodern tragedy of our generation.
Direction
Dexter M. Santos
Adaptation
Guelan Varela-Luarca
Music Design
Krina Cayabyab
Cast
Roco Sanchez as R and Francesca Go as J
Ricky Ibe as Congressman Montes with Marynor Madamesila as Mrs. Montes
Mitoy Sta. Ana as Mayor Capule with Marynor Madamesila as Mrs. Capule
Video
#R</3J (pronounced as “hashtag R broken-heart J”) is described as “A multimedial hallucination take on the tragic love story of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.” Watch the trailer here.
Reviews
A Romeo and Juliet for the millennial generation
Rome Jorge | Inquirer.net
In rehearsals previewed exclusively for the Inquirer, “#R</3J” appeared to be more akin to a contemporary dance performance than a traditional Shakespearean play, with the student ensemble performing ambitious and evocative choreography against stark, even jarring, lights, sound and scenery. This take on “Romeo and Juliet” would probably be equally at home in an art gallery, labeled as performance art.
“It’s going to be a pastiche of different art forms, a fusion of music, movement, dance, inter-text, video, etc.,” said Santos. “It’s not really a musical, and not a dance or ballet, either; but it will have all these different things.”
DUP’s ‘#R</3J’ is Resplendently Unique in Many Ways
JudeIsHere | The Modern Scribe
As a whole, this adaptation is resplendently unique in many ways, the Varela-Luarca adaptation has that ‘charm’ to attract viewers and theater lovers to flock to Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater and witness this spectacular stage performance that will run till September 13. It is one piece that is a not-to-be-missed since it retold the story of the star-crossed lovers and transformed the setting of Verona into a concrete jungle at the heart of Metro Manila set in 2015, which is teeming with corruption, revolt, advertisements, sex, social media, and condominium units. It truly captured the essence of the most enduring tragedy juxtaposing the young lovers’ romance with the present society’s many forms of ‘commodified’ and ‘convoluted’ kind of love.
The brave wildness of Dulaang UP’s millennial ‘Romeo and Juliet’–oops, ‘#R</3J’
Exie Abola | Inquirer.net
Separating real from fake, superficial from substantial, is not as easy as it looks, and showing how thin the line is between them is perhaps this production’s most insightful turn. This adaptation offers up plenty of what Luarca, in his program notes, calls “cheap simulacra” and “meaningless spectacles”: pop songs, video games, TV shows, news footage of violence, social media posts, YouTube videos, the emanations and exhalations of a culture’s inanity, the stimulation that leaves us so unsatisfied.
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Though it doesn’t quite deliver the “multimedia hallucination” its marketing campaign promises, it gives us something better: a vivid reimagining of “Romeo and Juliet” that, though dispensing with his verse, is true to Shakespeare and, though cleaving to a well-worn story, is true to the times as well.
The “balcony” scene in #R</3J
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Photos
Photos by Dino Dimar
Photos by Vlad Gonzales
Shakespeare in the Philippines 