Shakespeare troupe offers merry mayhem with ‘Twelfth Night’
The World’s A Stage Players offer a comedy of mistaken identities, unrequited passion, and foolish ambition beginning January 16.
“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.”
So laments Viola, one of Shakespeare’s heroines, who is caught in a love triangle in the Bard’s gender-bending comedy “Twelfth Night.” In the play, mistaken identities, unrequited passion, and foolish ambition generate merry mayhem.
The World’s A Stage Players will make order from this chaos when they stage “Twelfth Night” at 51 Walden Performing Arts Center on January 16, 17, 23, and 24.
Having washed ashore in an exotic country, Illyria, after a shipwreck, Viola disguises herself as a male page, Cesario, to seek employment in the house of Duke Orsino.
She falls for the duke, but there’s a hitch. He’s lovesick for someone else, the wealthy countess Olivia, but she spurns Orsino’s advances, claiming she is mourning her dead father and brother. Orsino enlists Cesario’s aid in wooing her, but the supposedly grief-stricken Olivia becomes infatuated with Cesario.
Further complicating the plot: the arrival of Viola’s twin brother Sebastian, whom she thought had been lost in the wreck, and the ridiculous aspirations of Olivia’s rude and pompous steward, Malvolio, who believes he can marry the countess and raise his social status.
Music and mischief
Playfully subtitling it “What You Will,” Shakespeare wrote the play in 1601-02 for the close of the Christmas season — some might recall Queen Elizabeth attending “Romeo and Juliet” in the film “Shakespeare in Love” and afterward requesting that the bard write something “more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night.”
A tradition that included riotous feasting, masques, music, and mischief and featured temporary role reversals and cross-dressing, the Elizabethan festival of Twelfth Night was held on the eve of the Epiphany, 12 days after Christmas.
Offering the comedy only weeks after the holidays, the World’s A Stage Players decided, would be “just perfect for the time of year,” says Ed Bernard of Acton, a founding member of the troupe, which is affiliated with the Acton Players and dates back to 2012.
Troupe member Katie Speed, a Worcester resident and theater educator who teaches drama at Wellesley Middle School, is directing the play. She says the story “speaks to the joy that comes from exploring the fullness of who you are.”
Speed chose to set her “Twelfth Night” in the late 1960s because “the cultural revolution of the time mirrors some of the personal revolutions the characters experience.” The production reimagines Illyria in a world shaken by the Vietnam War. “The personal griefs it brings to the characters forces them to reexamine who they are without some of the people they’ve lost,” she says.
A timely tale
The story is relevant, Speed adds, because “lots of us are experiencing a similar grief right now, whether from fractured relationships due to the current political climate or just a general grief from the heaviness of the world.”
The cast members are AJ Gaudreau (Duke Orsino); Hannah Clifford (Viola/Cesario); Lexi Meunier (Olivia); Elle Dunne (Sebastian); Mike Lague (Malvolio); Jon Linden (Sir Toby Belch); Brian Sensale (Sir Andrew Aguecheek); Jasmine Hall (Maria); Ethan Barlow (Antonio); Emerson Vasquez (Feste), Tofer Carlson (Captain/Officer); and Nick Gould (Curio/Priest/Olivia’s Brother).
The World’s A Stage Players focus on Shakespeare’s history cycle and comedies and are known for their free summer performances on the Acton Free Public Library lawn.
“Twelfth Night” performances at 51 Walden Performing Arts Center are on January 16, 17, 23, and 24 at 7 p.m. with an additional matinee on January 24 at 2 p.m. Admission is free. Visit concordplayers.org for more information.
