Film Futurist

NURSE: @Jess_nurse I’m devistated! What am I gna do? X

JULIET: @julietcap16 You need to remember that he didn’t tell you the truth. Do you honestly WANT to be with someone who lies to you?

Ok, that exchange between Juliet and Nurse is probably not the Shakespeare verse you remember from your high school English class. It seems that this Juliet,(@julietcap16 on Twitter) has more in common with lonelygirl15 than she does with the classic 14th century heroine. (As we discover from her Facebook profile, she loves Taylor Swift and Twilight).

But the beauty of Shakespeare is that it never gets old, and the genius of the great author’s classic texts is watching them get reinvented over and over in various eras. So it should come as no surprise that Such Tweet Sorrow, a Twitter performance of Romeo and Juliet is having its moment. A British production performed (or tweeted) by the Royal Shakespeare Company with the help of cross-platform media shop, Mudlark , it is funded by Channel 4′s digital investment fund, 4iP.

A loose interpretation of the original text, this Romeo & Juliet began on April 10th and takes place in the span of five weeks and over 4,000 tweets. Now a few weeks and storylines in, you can follow all the characters tweets on a timeline that lives on the website, read a summary of what has happened so far, and check out the playlist for Juliet’s masked birthday party on Spotify and last.fm. which include, with some irony I imagine, Beyonce’s unforgettable Single Ladies whose lyrics demand a ring on the finger. And no less cheeky, the inclusion of MGMT’s Kids, no doubt a nod to the folly of youth, with its hypnotic refrain “control yourself.”

For Juliet’s party, she invited guests on their Facebook page to RSVP and send photos of their masks. 83 people responded and a handful participated in the mask challenge. It seems Juliet has the most active social media profile, including a Youtube page with 3 videos, where we get a glimpse into the Juliet’s feelings and interests, in the teenage girl bedroom (again another nod to lonelygirl15). The  most viewed of all three videos is the first, with 13,690 views at this writing, is perhaps the one that gives the most insight into Juliet. See below.

Based on the mainstream media’s response and coverage of the project, it appears to have made some sort of impact and certainly marks a notable moment in the expansion of theater performance into social media space. While I’m fascinated by the collaborative work this project is doing across theater, literature and social media, I have to say that this attempt falls into the caveman days of of interactive fiction. I have some quibbles with the actual design of the site (including the annoying inability to move through the timeline with ease), but most importantly  I’d have to critique the experience/story designers for not integrating the performance more into the social media space.

While Twitter in and of itself is an engagement platform, the lack of context (outside of clever pop culture references and lingo) seem to kill the “play”. I guess my expectations included a high level of interactivity and audience involvement. Put simply, why would I, as an audience member on Twitter, engage this drama outside of the novelty of seeing Shakespeare on Twitter? There’s no story hook for me, no compelling invitation to participate in the (vastly underdeveloped) world of the Capulets and the Montagues, and no reason for me to stick around…since I already know the ending. If the contemporary-ness is aimed at the teenage girls who know the dance routine to Single Ladies, then it certainly fails to engage them; if it is aimed (very slightly older!) ladies like myself, it seems perhaps over simplified and too full of silly teenage drama.

I know this is just the beginning and that experimentation will be going on for a while, so I hesitate to be overly critical. However, looking at this case really drove home for me the need for completely thought-through narratives and inventive engagement strategies, even dare I say, when you are working with the master of narrative himself, Shakespeare.

You can follow the characters: @romeo_mo, @julietcap16, @Tybalt_Cap, @Jess_nurse,@LaurenceFriar and @Mercuteio