I bought tickets for this show the day it went on pre-sale—two tickets in total, costing over a thousand yuan. I wanted to watch it with a girl, and even looked for someone online. Eventually, someone did watch it with me, but it wasn't at all like I'd imagined. Today, I want to say: finding someone you like is actually quite difficult.

Because this requires me to overcome my own shortcomings, face myself honestly, and also to look forward to meeting such a person. Not finding one is partly due to bad luck, and partly due to my own lack of effort. I know perfectly well how much time I've spent on this.

The girl I watched the play with today was very interesting; her smile was beautiful, although we didn't talk much. To see the people on stage clearly, she even brought a small pair of binoculars, which surprised me.


What is love?

Everyone has their own answer. And what is mine? Regarding love, regarding intimacy, what am I really yearning for? My feelings about it are still very vague. I can't quite explain it. I haven't thought much about love because I've never been in a relationship, so I naturally don't know the joys and sorrows. I have aspirations beyond reality, but that's all.

Reality is already suffocating me; love is a luxury for me.

I hope I can meet someone like that, someone in whose presence I won't feel inferior, someone in whose presence I can talk and laugh freely, someone in whose presence I don't need to pretend. Will I meet such a person? You, the reader of this article, do you think I'll encounter this?

For the first two-thirds of the play, I didn't experience much emotional fluctuation, except for hearing familiar famous songs like "Lord of the World" and "Love," which brought me joy. But then came the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. All those earlier melodies, those pieces that had repeatedly struck my heart, seemed to erupt in those few short minutes. Both committed suicide; the world couldn't accept their love, and the hatred of their parents had affected their descendants.

If there truly is a heaven, Romeo and Juliet would surely be happy. That's what I thought.

The core of tragedy is the contradiction between what we desire and what we don't. You want a happy ending, but the author deliberately creates pain to stimulate people, to cause suffering, and to make them think. If everything goes smoothly, and there's no reverence in one's heart, one will act recklessly. If every day is just about getting by, like the cuckoo in the desert, living for today without thinking about tomorrow, what hope is there for the future?

I need an anchor, a fixed point, so that no matter how the outside world changes, my core beliefs will not waver. If I get lost, I can easily find my way back; it won't take too long.

Regarding the scenes in the play, two points are worth mentioning:

  1. When the mother tells Juliet that she must marry, there are two real people upstairs, and downstairs, as if mirrored, two more people, hidden in the shadows. I think this is a representation of the inner world of the mother and Juliet. Expressing their inner struggles through physical performance is quite interesting.
  2. The dance of death runs throughout the play; it's a very special element. The shadow of death looms over it constantly, and the tragedy reaches its climax at the moment of death.

I really liked the encore songs, and here are a few excerpts:

Avoir 20 ans, c'est jusqu'au matin

Being 20 means living until morning

Avoir 20 ans, c'est gratter sur des guitares

Being 20 means strumming guitars

Refaire le monde même si ça change rien

Reinventing the world even if it changes nothing

Avoir 20 ans, c'est rêver tout haut

Being 20 means dreaming out loud

Nous, on n'a rien du tout

We have absolutely nothing

La vie devant nous

Our whole lives ahead of us

Avoir 20 ans, c'est trembler de peur

Being 20 means trembling with fear

D'oser aimer, d'ouvrir son cœur

Of daring to love, of opening your heart

Avoir 20 ans, c'est se mettre en colère

Being 20 means getting angry

Ne croire en rien mais attendre tout

Believing in nothing but expecting everything

Avoir 20 ans, c'est rêver tout haut

Being 20 means dreaming out loud

Let us all strive together.