Twelfth Night Reflections

I would first like to preface this, with the fact that when I reflect upon a production I am reflecting as an Actor. It is no way meant to hurt anyone’s feelings nor say that I would have done it more effectively. It is simply an objective break down of what I thought worked and what I thought did not work. As well my own opinions and values that can be chocked up and thrown out if you choose to. Also because so many of my peers are involved, I feel uncomfortable critiquing them in a public forum. I will limit my review of the production to the direction and over all scope.

I was disappointed with our school’s production of Twelfth Night. While the show has its outstanding individual performances, over all a cohesive performance is not be found in Parker Theatre this fall. Director Dr. Frank Trezza, had no vision for the show, there was no sense of a thru line making the whole production want for movement. If I had to pick one word to describe the whole show it would be stagnant. There was no sense of movement either in pacing, in stakes, or in the actual physicality of the play. By setting the play in the Baroque era Trezza further managed to freeze the production into an academic museum piece. Why set it in the Baroque era? Not only is it just a complete lack of imagination but it does nothing to serve the text. Due to the constrictions of the costumes ( although visually stunning and designed by Professor Andrea Varga) and mannerisms of the period, everyone’s movement seemed stilted and unnatural. There was nothing organic or real for the actors and therefore for the most part it appeared made it harder for them to truly connect past the surface level. Overall the added convention of the Baroque proved to be distracting and silly. Shakespeare is like a really great black dress. You completely ruin the dress by adding layers of bows and frills or pairing it with a ridiculously gaudy accessory. It is just not necessary. Especially when the majority of the cast was struggling with the technicalities of putting the dress ( ie mastering the language and emotional connectedness) that all of the added everything was just nonsense. Granted it looked pretty ( Set designed by Kelsey Luken- my apartment mate!) If setting it in the baroque era were to bring something out about the text then fine. But it didn’t there seemed to be now logic as to why it was set where it was. Everything on a stage must have a reason otherwise it just becomes an exercise in self-indulgence.

Perhaps even more irksome than the time period, was literal ill direction of the stage picture. Parker theatre like the actual Globe theatre is a ¾ thrust space. This means the audience surrounds the stage on three sides. Shakespeare was well aware of fact and even wrote into the play where the actors were to turn their bodies to a different side of the stage. Normally this is done every time there is an emotional shift. Dr. Trezza completely ignores this, not only does he ignore this, but he completely ignored the fact that there were people sitting on the sides of the audience. It was directed as though it were in a proscenium or picture frame space. People pay money I spent 80% of the production staring at the backs or partial profile of actors. Totally and completely ineffective.