“Juliet’s Romeo” A Contemporary Romeo and Juliet Comes to a Mallorca Vineyard

Shakespeare, wine, a Mallorca vineyard and a thoroughly modern take on young love. Juliet’s Romeo, a new adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by Mallorca-raised actress Isabella Rose, comes to Bodega Olorón in Alaró for four performances from 5 to 8 September 2026.

Forget any memories you might have of struggling through Shakespeare at school. This is a 90-minute, fast-paced, funny and rather spicy reimagining of the story, created for a contemporary audience and performed inside the bodega’s modern winemaking space.

And while there is plenty that Shakespeare would recognise, Isabella has made some significant changes.

Romeo and Juliet for the swipe-left generation

The starting point for Juliet’s Romeo came from something Isabella noticed in the original play. Romeo may be remembered as one half of literature’s most famous pair of star-crossed lovers, but when we first meet him he is actually desperately in love with somebody else. “People always think about Romeo and Juliet as this sweeping, amazing romantic love story,” Isabella told Majorca Mallorca. “But Romeo is madly in love with Rosaline and within 12 hours he is able to fall madly in love with someone else.” That feels rather different when viewed from 2026. “Right now, we live in a very swipe-left culture,” Isabella says. “What is desire? What is lust? What is love? And how is that combined with being 18 and being super young? What is the definition of love for us nowadays?”

It is something that anyone with teenage or twenty-something children will probably recognise. Relationships have acquired an entire vocabulary which many of us are still trying to understand, and the boundaries between dating, seeing someone, being together and the dreaded “situationship” can be decidedly confusing. Perhaps Romeo was simply several centuries ahead of his time.

This time, Rosaline gets her say

Isabella has also corrected something which has always seemed slightly unfair.

Rosaline, the woman Romeo claims to adore before meeting Juliet, never actually appears in Shakespeare’s play. We hear an awful lot about her, but Shakespeare never gives her the opportunity to tell us what she thinks about any of it.  Isabella does. “I did something very cheeky,” she says. “I’ve given Rosaline a whole character. She comes and kind of gatecrashes.” Other characters from the original have been combined and reimagined too. Mrs Ortega, the owner of the guesthouse where much of the story unfolds, draws partly on Juliet’s Nurse, while the play also has feminist undertones around the women who somehow manage to hold everything together while the world around them is falling apart. (Photo above shows Nina who is playing Rosaline and Isabella rehearsing) And there is one fairly significant difference from the Shakespearean original that we can reveal without spoiling the ending: this is not a tragedy. “It has a lot of laughs,” says Isabella. “You know something is funny when you can barely get through rehearsals without cracking up.”

From Verona to a guesthouse in Spain

The Montagues and Capulets are gone too. In Isabella’s version, two countries are at war. Two young people from important families on opposite sides are sent away to neutral territory to keep them safe, only to find themselves staying at the same slightly crumbling guesthouse in Spain. Neither initially knows who the other really is. A summer romance follows, before the inevitable discovery that the person you have fallen for belongs to the very side you are supposed to oppose. The new setting allows Isabella to explore some of Shakespeare’s original questions about loyalty, identity, family and love while bringing them into a world which feels considerably closer to our own.

Meet Isabella Rose

Although Isabella was born in Australia, Mallorca is very definitely home. She arrived on the island at just four months old when her father’s work in the yachting industry brought the family here. “I literally don’t remember anything different. Mallorca was always home,” she says. She grew up performing with Mallorca’s Centre Stage drama group before leaving the island at 16 to attend boarding school in the UK. She subsequently studied journalism and film, but the desire to act never quite disappeared.

During Covid she decided to do something about it.

Isabella applied to just one drama school, the prestigious Oxford School of Drama, deciding that if she was accepted she would take it as a sign that acting was the path she was supposed to follow. There were five rounds of auditions. Around 3,000 people applied that year and just 18 were offered places. Isabella was one of them. “I didn’t realise it was so prestigious or so difficult to get into,” she admits. “I was slightly blasé about it, very relaxed. I think that definitely helped.”

From Mallorca to Silo

Since graduating, Isabella has worked in theatre and on screen. She has a role in the forthcoming Second World War film Lucky Strike and will also appear in season four of Apple TV+ series Silo. Anyone hoping for advance Silo spoilers is going to be disappointed. Isabella is firmly under NDA.  She has also continued writing feature films, short films and television pilots, but Juliet’s Romeo is her first play. The idea emerged during a turbulent period in Isabella’s own romantic life, something which inevitably found its way into her writing. “I’ve always used art as a means of therapy,” she says. “A lot of my inner process comes through in my work because I feel like that’s what makes it more authentic.”

Theatre and wine at Bodega Olorón

The Mallorca setting makes this production particularly interesting. Juliet’s Romeo is being staged at Bodega Olorón in Alaró, with performances taking place inside the contemporary building where the wine is made and the vineyard providing the setting for the wider evening. The production is directed by Andrea Helene, whose previous work in Mallorca includes Selling Shade, with a small cast working on an intensive rehearsal schedule ahead of opening night.

The original Shakespeare play has been considerably condensed, with Juliet’s Romeo running for around 90 minutes without an interval. “It’s a laugh, it’s fun, it’s super contemporary and engaging, and it’s quite fast-paced,” Isabella says.

So, if the words “Shakespearean theatre” usually make you imagine a very long evening sitting politely while wondering when everyone is going to die, this may be the production that changes your mind. There will also be wine. That generally helps.

Juliet’s Romeo Mallorca: dates, venue and tickets

Juliet’s Romeo will be performed at Bodega Olorón in Alaró, Mallorca, on 5, 6, 7 and 8 September 2026. The performance lasts approximately 90 minutes without an interval. Tickets are available through Eventbrite: Book tickets for Juliet’s Romeo  

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