Queen Elizabeth's Fantasy: Suchtweetsorrow: Is it really acceptable?

Romeo and Juliet is one of the best known and most performed plays of William Shakespeare. Several adaptations have taken place around the world, such as comics, movies, operas, and so on. Among these adaptations, there is one that called my attention in a powerful way.

This adaptation is called “Suchtweetsorrow”. The Royal Shakespeare Company and the Mudlark Production Comany, both cooperated to present Romeo and Juliet as a 21st century story, using Twitter as the stage, in real time. Other social media were also used, like Youtube and Facebook. From April to May of 2010, actors and actresses were free to improvise and to use modern language, but following the main sequence of events. In this adaptation, Mr. Montague killed Mrs. Capulet in a car accident, giving rise to hostility between two families. The background was fully adapted to modern times.

Summary of the story produced by the company: http://vimeo.com/12363657

Although Old English was replaced by Modern English and diverse aspects were modified, the core ideas of the play were kept, like the confrontation between roles, true self and society expectations; and the rebellion shown by young generations.

It is true that nowadays social media have become part of our lives, and there is not much we can do about it. Younger generations have grown immersed in the Facebook and Twitter world. Despite that, do we really need to make EVERYTHING technology-socialmedia friendly? Not a rhetorical question, I really wonder if we have to. As future teachers of these generations, we must find the means of approaching our students, catching their interest and guiding them towards meaningful learning, so in this case, we would be presenting them Romeo and Juliet in a well-known context for them, and they could be very interested. But, then I think, it is valid or acceptable to modify this masterpiece in such an aggressive way in order to bring it closer to young generations? What if we start modifying several legendary works with that purpose only?