Eastern Front Theatre and Shakespeare by the Sea return with their award-winning production of Stevey Hunter’s Fat Juliet. The modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, told from Juliet’s point of view, will play at the Alderney Landing Theatre in Dartmouth from March 20-29, 2025.
I rarely saw fat people in lead roles, especially when it involved a love story. I quickly resented being told which roles were and were not for me. – Stevey Hunter
Hunter was inspired by their own experiences at theatre school. “I rarely saw fat people in lead roles, especially when it involved a love story,” says Hunter. “I quickly resented being told which roles were and were not for me.”
By reimagining Juliet as a teen with relatable body image issues, Hunter was able to see themselves in the part for the first time.
“I grew up thinking that I wasn’t good enough because of my body size,” says Hunter in a 2021 interview with Halifax Presents. “So, while this is a contemporary retelling of Romeo and Juliet, it’s also a version where we also get to see Juliet fall in love with herself.”
The play mixes modern language with the heightened text of the original. “When they’re falling in love or when there is still more anger,” says Hunter in their 2021 interview. “I’ve tried to make it as smooth as possible so that all of a sudden you’re not getting this flowery language that doesn’t necessarily fit the world because we really created a world that is quite timeless.”
The action occurs entirely on a giant four-poster bed in a “dreamy bubblegum haze of soft pinks and sheer curtains,” a location that director Kat McCormack says echoes Shakespeare’s original text.
“When you focus on just the scenes Juliet is in, you realize fairly quickly that she is almost never allowed outside of her bedroom,” says director Kat McCormack. “She’s so sheltered by her family and has very little agency in the original story, but Fat Juliet gives us an updated look at what happens in those in-between moments that Shakespeare didn’t show us.”
Fat Juliet plays at the Alderney Landing Theatre (2 Ochterloney St, Dartmouth) from March 20-29, 2025. Visit easternfronttheatre.com for tickets and information.