Romeo & Juliet

The hundreds of people who've left the North Greenwich Tube Station are walking to the same place. The rain outside is nearly invisible by sight or touch, except for the droplets that present themselves on my camera. I'm one in the crowd of I don't know how many (I've always been bad with numbers) who are walking — slowly — to the entrance of the O2 arena. I see concrete and gargantuan box-like buildings, whose upstairs contents are mystery. On ground-level they reveal a plethora of eateries — Pret, Cafe Rouge, a Mexican restaurant must have cultivated a level of authenticity while you're inside, but from where I stand it all feels synthetic. I think I should be in an alternate universe, but I'm really down the road from the Prime Meridian. Greenwich is Shakespeare country.

Inside the O2, people have joined an optional queue for metal detecting and baggage scanning. Vendors in yellow jackets are selling special edition Romeo & Juliet programs for 10 pounds each. A handsome, elderly couple is dressed in tweed and trousers — understatedly elegant his and hers. A group of 30-year-old women wear kitten heels and skirts to the knee or chubby calves. A tanned and bleach-blonde 20-something holds tightly to the man next to her. I wonder if his biceps will rip through his tight, white t-shirt. Her black, figure-hugging dress does little for her figure and reveals a bit too much. Clearly the venue — known for Lady Gaga concerts and Monster Truck rallies — has elicited confusion regarding dress.

What the performance looked like:

The performance should have been about what's on stage, but instead I was watching anything but the ballet that was happening in front of me. I tried really hard to resist, but the three gargantuan screens grabbed my attention. They had a way of sucking me into watching the performance on Omega-Vision. A scene would go by, and I would realize I hadn't watched the dancing on stage at all. Also, the pit orchestra was above the screens, and attached to some serious technology that surround-sounded the shit of them. Watching the screens while hearing live sound helped tremendously by speakers made the actual, real, 3-dimensional dancing supplemental. It was surreal to think that the performance on stage was like a lip-synced version of what I was watching on a screen.

Questions:

How does this really open up ballet to a broader audience?

What was the real intention?

If you’re supposedly opening the ballet to a broader audience, why are the tickets more expensive? Why is the O2 a more attractive venue than the Royal Opera House?