Love can make you feel like you are soaring above everything, like life is a circus, and if your families don’t get along, a tricky balancing act as they fight. “Duel Reality” by The 7 Fingers highlights all of these to the stage in their new artistic and acrobatic show inspired by “Romeo and Juliet” to The Old Globe stage through August 4th.

Photo credit: The cast of Duel Reality. Photo by Jim Cox

As soon as you enter the theatre you are greeted by a split theatre, one side is blue for the Capulets and the other red for the Montagues. The stage has an auditorium feel, with seating for some audience members, and is lit with split red and blue lighting by designer Alexander Nichols. You wear a wristband showing your family affiliation and just that easily the audience is already on board. The night I attended people sat down and were soon enough chanting each family's names, and waving their wristbands around. Apparently, it is just that easy to become the town of Verona filled with two feuding families.

As performers emerge from the audience as the warring families, and make their way on stage, hyping up the audience along the way. The ensemble includes Daniela Corradi, Andreas De Ryck, Aerial Emery, Soen Geirnaert, Gerardo Guitiérrez, Michelle Hernandez, Marco Ingaramo, Kalani June, Einar Kling-Odencrants, Santiago Rivera Laugerud, Arata Urawa, and Danny Vrijsen.

Michelle Hernandez and Gerardo Gutiérrez in Duel Reality. Photo by Jim Cox

Gerardo Guitiérrez and Michelle Hernandez, a pair of acrobat and trapeze artists find each other as Romeo and Juliet. The show uses Shakespeare’s tragic love story as a scaffolding for their competition, with only some of the play’s dialogue interspersed throughout it. For the most part, the show is told through dance, acrobatics, juggling, and more.

Each competition is judged by a referee who decides the winner for each. The first competition is an exciting and audience-pleasing act on the Chinese pole, where Marco Ingaramo and Kalani June defy gravity as they leap and spin, swap spots, and at one point plummet to the stage head first in a daring drop.

Major plot points of the play do appear along the way; the masquerade ball is represented by dancing and some brilliant hula hooping by Aerial Emery, who along with navigating the hoops herself, holds them for others to leap and tumble through. Guitiérrez and Hernandez are graceful and lovely as they reach for each other just out of reach, and then come together for paired acrobatics and trapeze work. When they finally came together the audience audible sighed before bursting into applause.

The duel between Tybalt and Mercutio is strikingly told by Danny Vrijsen and Andreas de Ryck, who make the teeterboard beautiful and deadly. At first, the board requires a deceptively compatible rhythm and harmony, but it turns combustible with flips, spins, and an incredibly impactful ending.

Andreas De Ryck and Danny Vrijsen in Duel Reality. Photo by Jim Cox.

This show is good for all ages, with younger audience members being entertained by the physical feats without care about the story itself. The energy of the play is fun and feisty, the techniques are breathtaking, and the clean and simple scenic design and striking lighting highlight the acrobatics. The only thing that feels out of balance is the dialogue which can feel awkwardly wedged in, but the artistry and acrobatics will keep everyone entertained.