PurpleDoor takes a new look at Romeo and Juliet
- Paul Genty
- May 3
- 1 min read
Liverpool-based PurpleDoor bring their uncompromising new adaptation of Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet to Salford and Leeds this month (May).
PurpleDoor's decidedly modern version of the play "is not a love story".
"The tragedy of a young man radicalised into extreme violence, and the 13-year-old girl his actions drive to suicide, has been misunderstood for centuries."
The finished production, slightly retitled Romeo.Juliet, was inspired by the uncompromising TV series Adolescence and follows development work at Manchester's HOME venue last year. The much-admired, award-winning company set out to reimagine Shakespeare’s best-known play and uncover its darker side and "understand what Shakespeare was actually telling us in this story of a society driven to madness."
The show opens at Slung Low in Leeds on May 16, then moves to the Kings Arms in Salford from May 19-21. It's aimed at those 14 and over.
PurpleDoor was launched in 2008; the company's focus has always been to support regional actors and produce radical Shakespeare with regional voices.
The company uses Shakespeare, it says, to understand our place in the world today: "We offer tangible development to artists and thrilling, thought-provoking theatrical experiences to audiences. We work towards a world in which classical performance is a tool for taking action in the real world, and where working-class audiences and artists feel proud to embrace Shakespeare."
