The Seoul Performing Arts Company will stage the musical Romeo and Juliet at Beijing's Century Theater from Friday to Sunday.

Since its premiere in August 2002 in Seoul, the musical has been successfully performed throughout South Korea.

The two-hour musical, which is adopted from the famous play by William Shakespeare, takes on a modern relevance.

"It keeps the mostly young Korean audience captivated," said director Yoo Hee-Sung.

He said, the story of an arranged marriage for money and warring families can be easily imagined by young Koreans.

"When it was staged in South Korea, the sympathetic whimpers and sniffles could be heard by the time the two lovers met their inevitable death," said Shin Sun-Hi, artistic director of Seoul Performing Arts Company.

However, a decision made at the end not to include the final mourning scene of the families weakens the original Shakespearian formula, where weddings and deaths make all things right in this world. Instead, the closing is a ballet piece that has the lovers meeting in heaven, sugarcoating the final message of the play and romanticizing the untimely death of the two.

Much of the original Shakespearian language is kept intact in the music, which is originally composed by Czech composer Zdenek Bartak and arranged by Ivan Zelenka.

(China Daily September 25, 2003)