>Riccardo Scamarcio in Romeo e Giulietta at Teatro Eliseo

I’m the luckiest woman alive; I’m here, in Rome, seeing a play starring the handsome young movie actor, Riccardo Scamarcio.

This isn’t some kind of interactive performance; is it? Because I am in the front row – Riccardo will be spitting on me when he’s saying his lines. Interesting crowd, for the matinee of Romeo e Giulietta. The good seats are filled with senior citizens and the balcony is a giggle-fest of teenage girls. You should have seen them exploding with excitement over the poster of Riccardo, shirtless, out front of Teatro Eliseo. Show’s about to start…we’ll talk after.

(Four hours later) Ok, the (countless) curtain calls have ceased and I am walking out with the old ladies behaving badly who shared the front row with me – they reacted verbally to the actors on stage ( “Hmmmff”s of disapproval after every dirty word and words of warning to the characters like, “She’s not really dead!”), got up and went to the bathroom repeatedly, and coughed their lungs out ( you Italians have to stop smoking so much). We were all beaming and the 4 1/2 foot tall 80 year old beside me said, “Scamarcio is my Romeo!” The woman on my left said that she thought that Riccardo was too young for the part and I thought, but did’t say out loud, “Ricardo Scamarcio is 32 and Romeo was a teenager so what you mean to say is that Riccardo is too young for you to be so very attracted to.” Am I right?

Never mind; everyone in the theater was pretty attracted to him – including the men. He was adorable, and his acting was outstanding. I had no idea how much I’d be raving about it; I mean, how many times can you see “Romeo and Juliet” in your life and still get excited about it? And thank god, since it was almost 4 hours long, the play was surprisingly good and a fresh look at a familiar story.

It was old, it was new, classic and contemporary, serious and funny, and it was a showcase for Scamarcio’s talent but generous to the other performers who were all quite good. It kept my interest for all that time and and that’s saying a lot for me.

It wasn’t the movies, but it was a blast!

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