Estonian theatre has slammed its foot on the accelerator of avant-garde spectacle with Romeo and Juliet reimagined, re-oiled and very, very loud.
Courtesy of theatre-based petrolheads Kinoteater, Shakespeare’s tragedy has been transformed into a scrapyard opera, a mechanical love story told entirely through metal and motion.
No actors. No words. Just bulldozers, cranes and trucks performing heartbreak through hydraulics. Sparks, pyrotechnics and pistons replace soliloquies in what the theatre calls “a tragedy of motors played out on a junkyard with the picturesque backdrop of a sand quarry.”
Part Swan Lake, part demolition derby, it is an extraordinary industrial ballet. Trucks perform tricks usually reserved for stagecraft or dance, diggers bow their buckets in grief, and machines circle one another like lovers in a car park waltz.
Using nothing but raw horsepower, the show turns heavy machinery into something unexpectedly moving. Romeo, a rally truck, falls for Juliet, a red Ford pickup, surrounded by a cast of fire engines, buses and cement mixers.
Performed in Tallinn’s Rummu limestone quarry, the 45-minute wordless production combines fireworks, music and choreography on a massive scale. From the videos, it looks nothing short of epic.
And, as you would expect, it ends in flames, which feels entirely faithful to the text.
