Every year, theatre students at Mission Senior Secondary present an annual spring Shakespearian production. This year the school will take on one of the playwright’s most widely produced and classically studied, quoted and referenced plays – Romeo and Juliet.
This play has withheld the test of time. Romeo and Juliet teaches people about how they may become blinded by attitudes and unaware of how they affect others and it speaks to the intensity and fragility of the human condition.
Citizens of Verona get caught up in an ongoing familial feud, while two youth dash away the generations of ingrained grudges in the name of love.
This play is about compassion, courage and, of course, young love.
Mission Secondary actors present a vigorous performance, set in renaissance-era Italy, evocative of the passion and energy of the Bard’s tragic characters.
What makes these characters so tragic is their balancing act between moments of absolute comedy and celebration juxtaposed with devastating desperation and devotion.
Complete with street brawls “do you bite your thumb at us, sir?”, a musical masquerade, and pure vulnerability, the students bring a freshness to a production that is both tragic and triumphant.
The production goes on April 25-27 and May 2-4 at 7 p.m. at the school. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 and are available by reservation at 604-826-7191 or at the door contingent on availability.