Romeo and Juliet (Pastor) Romeo and Juliet (Pastor) Romeo and Juliet is a 2008 ballet choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor based on William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet". Pastor's three-act version is set to the same score used in the Prokofiev version of the ballet. The libretto is by Pastor and Willem Bruls. The ballet is recast as a contemporary political statement set in three Italian political eras of the 20th century. Act I is set in Italy in the 1930s, during the reign of Benito Mussolini and the emergence of Fascism. (1935 was the year in which Prokofiev composed the original score.) Act II
Romeo and Juliet The religious metaphors of "shrine", "pilgrim", and "saint" were fashionable in the poetry of the time and more likely to be understood as romantic rather than blasphemous, as the concept of sainthood was associated with the Catholicism of an earlier age. Later in the play, Shakespeare removes the more daring allusions to Christ's resurrection in the tomb he found in his source work: Brooke's "Romeus and Juliet". In the later balcony scene, Shakespeare has Romeo overhear Juliet's soliloquy, but in Brooke's version of the story, her declaration is done alone. By bringing Romeo into the scene to eavesdrop, Shakespeare breaks