Twelth Night

‘If music be the food of love, play on’ and during this commendatory 400th year of the Bards death, societies up and down the country are performing his works, maybe for the first time! So what an exciting prospect for audiences and production teams alike; ‘play-on’ indeed. With understanding the challenges and not forgetting obviously, what a society can achieve, initial decisions can carry as much weight as the performances themselves. Choosing modern dress and particularly in this instance the songs to compliment the dialogue, helped this production to good effect. Appropriate choices reflected the storyline thus creating a bridge between the language of the 17th century to modern times. The action itself did move along at an understandable pace and with the shape of character positions, both within the principle roles and ensemble, it certainly galvanised the effort clearly displayed by all concerned. The auditorium itself is a lovely performance space especially since you utilised the area having the audience on three sides. This enhanced the whole experience with it being close up and personal.
The characters themselves were well formed, even though there was some ‘doubling-up’, which I always think is an enterprising challenge and done regularly in professional theatre these days. Remember it’s not just costume which indicates a role, the voice and body posture aids the effect as well. You didn’t shy away from taking the opportunity to bring out the comedic and bawdiness of the bards work, which when originally written would have entertained the rich and thought to be hilarious from those in the cheap seats. I’m glad to have noticed that thought had gone into all roles and it was obvious that everyone was endeavouring to take on-board the language and its
meaning which or course is what an actor needs to do in any genre of play or performance. The length of the show was well within an acceptable time frame which naturally meant thatdialogue was cut but unless one is a Shakespearean guru, the audience I’m sure didn’t notice. It is an acceptable practice and in practical terms, a wise thing to do because, as you so proved, theplay has a good storyline which is the main focus of attention.
In generalising your achievement, everyone embraced their roles to the best of their ability, whether in word, song or action. And as already mentioned the choice of lyrics within the songs, such as ‘Take It Easy’, ‘Go Your Own Way’, ‘How Will I Know’ to highlight but three, together with the capable musicianship, cemented a very enjoyable version of Twelfth Night, under the guiding direction of Alex Jackson. With the summer season here and your newly acquired insight into Shakespearean theatre, you
may well be enthused to see an outdoor production of one of his plays. After all they good storylines …

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