Rodeo and Julie-Ed

Synopsis: Downloadable video clips from Peter Skagen’s part-scripted, part-improvised musical theatre, dinner and barn dance adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, performed country and western style. ‘The entire premise of interactive dinner theatre of its sort being the mix of the cast with the audience in the here and now of the theatrical moment. The blending of a touchstone Shakespeare play like Romeo and Juliet with well-known American historical narratives in Western Canada perhaps signals the kinds of theatrical gestures that work best in the commercial contexts of dinner theatre, where financial exigencies, in large part, drive the content of performances’ (Skagen).

Clip 1: ‘Introducing Julie-Edwina’. Julie-Edwina is introduced to the audience to the tune of ‘Red-Neck Girl’. (5.48min)

Clip 2: ‘Julie-Ed and Rodeo commit suicide. After Julie-Ed collapses, Rodeo drinks the rest of the ‘Colgate-blue poison’. (1.48min)
Language: English
Country: Canada
Medium: Multimedia
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Year of release: 2003
Duration: 8 mins

Notes: An interview with Peter Skagen about the production can be read by visiting http://www.canadianshakespeares.ca/i_pskagen. ‘I think that anyone that comes to the show looking for evidence of the classics or some deep, you know, academic pondering, they’re not going to find it. This is a work of fun’ (extract from the interview cited above),

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