Theater |

Old Globe’s ‘Duel Reality’ will mix circus arts with Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Twenty-two years ago in Montreal, seven circus artists created the theater collective Les 7 doigts de la main (or, in English, The 7 Fingers).

Over the years the company has produced more than a dozen cirque-theater shows, including the train travel-themed “Passengers” which played to sold-out houses last year at The Old Globe in Balboa Park.

This weekend, The 7 Fingers returns to the Globe with the West Coast premiere of its latest show, “Duel Reality,” which troupe co-founder and show director Shana Carroll said is unlike anything they’ve done before.

It’s the first project her company has created from a pre-existing theater script, namely William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

“Duel Reality” is set at a high-intensity athletics competition, where two competitive, and ultimately warring, families battle for supremacy, while behind the scenes a young man and young woman from opposing families fall in love.

Because The 7 Fingers troupe has always built its shows from scratch, Carroll said “Duel Reality” forced her to rethink her creative process. And for many of this show’s actor-acrobats, “Duel Reality” has been their first experience performing classic Shakespearean text and diction and inhabiting pre-existing characters like the Capulets and Montagues.

“They took acting classes that many of them have never been exposed to,” Carroll said. “They’re not trained actors, but I think it brought  a different charm and authenticity to it. They’re discovering that voice in them for the first time.”

Carroll said that over the years The 7 Fingers has developed a specific way of working, where they build each show from the ground up in  four months. Each show begins with an idea or theme that is developed in the rehearsal process through improvisation and from personal experiences and ideas of the creative team or company members.

For example, Carroll’s inspiration for the show “Passengers” was the loss of a close friend. Told abstractly through a group of unrelated travelers on a train, “Passengers” presented a series of personal life journeys that were funny, sad, hopeful and romantic, using the mediums of dance, acrobatics and music.

“We really start with a blank page and do improvisation and see what comes out,” she said. “For me as a director, there’s a lot of getting to know the artists and envisioning ways to use them and create characters out of them and make their particular numbers intersect with the dramaturgy.”

But “Duel Reality” had an entirely different birthing process.

Back in 2018, The 7 Fingers was approached by Virgin Voyages, which was building a new high-end cruise ship and wanted a cutting-edge, signature show to launch with the vessel on its maiden voyage.

Instead of creating a show from soup to nuts in four months, the process took place over a few years. And instead of meticulously creating each scene and then knitting the pieces together into a story, the story arc of “Duel Reality” was planned out first and then circus acts were built in after that.

Having Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” offered the structural framework, but Carroll and team had to find a way to tell the story through acrobatics. That’s how the athletic competition was born, with the audience split in half and encouraged to cheer for their favorite teams. Perhaps not coincidentally, the teams are red and blue — potent colors during a fractious American election year.

“The decision to make it a sporting event was a specific choice,” she said. “With that, the audience can root for their team and have team pride. They’d get testosterone-filled being part of this match and then it would turn on its edge and they’d feel complicit. There’s a team red and a team blue and the lovers from opposite sides see each other and eventually it starts to devolve into polarity and hatred.”

After the development process, the launch of the Virgin Voyages ship and “Duel Reality” were delayed by the pandemic until 2021. Since then, the show has come ashore, a process that required recalibration. Carroll said cruise ship passengers are generally interested in a shorter, less-challenging entertainment fare, but for mainland theater audiences she expanded the show and gave the story more depth.

The revamped “Duel Reality” made its world premiere in August 2023 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Its U.S. premiere came in February at ArtsEmerson in Boston.

For Old Globe audiences who saw “Passengers,” Carroll said they may recognize a few of the performers — Marco Ingaramo and Sanitago Rivera Laugerud are returning — and some of the circus acts, but it will be a very different experience. Besides the well-known story of “Romeo and Juliet,” “Duel Reality” will also be a more acrobatic show due to its sports competition setting.

“All of our shows have nice, high-level acrobatics, but this is densely acrobatic,” she said. “I wanted to choose acrobatics that have really high stakes. We wanted to mirror the dramatic and emotional stakes at all time. It’s a pretty intense and high-risk acrobatic show.”

Some of the new acts Globe audiences will see in “Duel Reality” are the Korean plank, where two acrobats take turns jumping and dropping back down on either ends of a teeterboard. In this show, it’s the sworn enemies Mercutio and Tybalt who duel on the board rather than with swords.

“It’s like constant popcorn, popping back and forth. The sound of the board (as each acrobat lands) feels very much a gunshot. It’s very dark when you hear the bang of the board,” she said.

There will also be a dual pole number, hand-to-hand acrobatics, a duo trapeze act with floor acrobatic work, a Diablo juggling routine and an aerial chains act.

The show features an original score by Colin Gagné that features Shakespeare’s words as lyrics, and it will include portions of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s famous 1935 “Romeo and Juliet” ballet theme.

Barry Edelstein, the Old Globe’s artistic director since 2012 and a noted Shakespeare scholar, said he’s excited to bring The 7 Fingers company back, especially with a “Romeo and Juliet” theme.

“This show is fierce and passionate, and the brilliant circus work and daredevil acrobatics help tell a story that Globe audiences will recognize: two star-crossed lovers manage to connect even though the groups they belong to are sworn enemies,” Edelstein said. “Yes, there’s a hint of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in ‘Duel Reality,’ but it’s presented here in a way you’ve never seen before.”

The 7 Fingers presents ‘Duel Reality’

When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays. 8 p.m. Fridays. 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays. 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through 2 p.m. Aug. 4

Where: Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego

Tickets: $39 and up

Phone: (619) 234-5623

Online: theoldglobe.org