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Romeo and Juliet in European Culture
Edited by Juan F. Cerdá, Dirk Delabastita and Keith Gregor
[Shakespeare in European Culture 1] 2017
► pp. 247–262

Chapter 12
A festival blockbuster

Romeo and Juliet at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Avignon Off

 | University of Murcia
The Avignon Off and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival have a favourite Shakespearean play: Romeo and Juliet. Between 2011 and 2014, the play was staged fourteen times at the Edinburgh Fringe and thirteen times at the Avignon Off. This success can be attributed to its status as a well-known love story, its popularity and its emblematic scenes. Across the abundance of productions, two opposed trends can be identified: whereas many of the productions at the Edinburgh Fringe are staged by amateur groups, at the Avignon Off it is professional companies who tend to re-write the play or use it as a point of departure. This chapter seeks to address how Romeo and Juliet allows for different approaches at these two alternative festivals and, at the same time, it looks for reasons that explain the popularity of the play in twenty-first-century popular culture.
Keywords: Shakespeare, adaptation, festivals, performance, popular culture
Article outline
  • Romeo and Juliet as a “popular” play
  • The star-crossed lovers in Edinburgh and Avignon
  • Romeo and Juliet for all time
  • Parody and burlesque
  • From glam rock to the Italian roots
  • Amateurs and professionals
  • “Essence” and adaptability
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sec.1.13gue
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