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At last: a new Shakespeare the Lafrenz way!
Who doesn't know the most beautiful and at the same time saddest of all love stories? And anyone who knows Bernd Lafrenz also knows that both handkerchiefs and Reclam notebooks can be safely left at home. In his affectionate parody, Bernd Lafrenz gives "Romeo and Juliet", one of his freely comical Shakespeare productions, that very special, light and airy charm with which he has already delighted and taken his audiences by storm in other plays (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear). And as in these other adaptations, Lafrenz, who has won several awards, plays the complete story of Romeo and Juliet as a highly virtuoso one-man play, in which he often switches from one character to another with playful ease within seconds. But Lafrenz would not be Lafrenz if he were simply to retell the famous story! And so the audience first gets to know the endearingly lisping Balthasar, proud owner of the bicycle courier company "Internationale Kurierdienste Balthasar (seit 1423)" and descendant of Romeo's servant of the same name. For eleven generations - since 1423 - the Balthasars have been fulfilling Romeo's legacy: spreading the story of the two lovers throughout the land. But everything turns out quite differently than Balthasar had planned, because the Shakespearean work and its characters suddenly come to life in a magical way. Together with Balthasar, the audience suddenly finds itself right in the middle of the "thing of yore", experiencing the whole story of "Mr. Romeo" and "Miss Juliet" firstly live and secondly on location. And when, at the end of the drama, the audience, torn between fascination and laughter, witnesses two wonderful theatrical deaths performed in true style with twists and turns, this too - as Balthasar makes sure of - is touching and funny at the same time. In any case, it is a crowning finale to one of those rare, royal evenings of theater that make you not want to go home at all.
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