A distinctly Australian production of Romeo and Juliet will highlight the racism of the Cronulla riots.
Impulse Theatre’s new Shakespeare production sets the tragic love story in an Anglo-Lebanese gang war where the Australian flag is both standard and provocation.
Deliberately referencing the 2005 riots, the production replaces ‘fair Verona’ with western Sydney, the Prince with a police commissioner and the sword fights with knives and fists. But the essence of lovers across a cultural and familial divide has not changed and Director Stephen Wallace says it is as relevant as it has ever been.