The devastating final scene at a production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet took on a comedic tone when a cat wandered on stage to lie down beside Romeo and play with his hair.
The leads of the Imperial Russian Ballet Company performing in Izmir, Turkey, were able to maintain their composure and finish the scene undeterred while the cat, affectionately coined ‘Romeow’ by netizens, gave itself a bath and played near them, sparking laughs from the audience.
To his credit, Romeo, portrayed by Brazilian dancer Pedro Seara, managed to lie nearly perfectly still, only cracking a small smile as the cat rolled beside him.
Ballerina Tatyana Borger, who played Juliet, shared a video of Romeow's iconic scene on her Instagram, calling the interruption hilarious, noting that the laughter occurred during the moment she would usually hear crying in the crowd.
Romeo credited his hair care products for making him 'irresistible' to the cat
Seara shared the video tagging hair brand Kerastase, joking that the cat was biting his hair because the hair care products he used were "irresistible."
For the remainder of the show, the cat seemed to blend in with the dancers, jumping around on stage with its tail swaying to the music.
Romeow was such a show-stopper that a dancer brought it back out for a curtain call, where it was applauded by the audience for its performance.