Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Opening night tonight, 7pm - Door sales only.
Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. The actors who performed Shakespeare’s plays, and those of other playwrights of the period, were required to be able to perform as many as 40 plays with no notice. As a result, the plays are full of “stock” characters who were easily recognisable to the audiences of the day, and easily presented by the company.
For this production I have chosen to use some characterisations from Star Wars, as though these characters had got together and decided to perform some Shakespeare. This has provided us with a lot of entertainment in rehearsal, and hopefully will make our story more accessible.
Our Dark Lord broods over a land where Olivia, a lady twice bereaved (her father and brother dead within a month), refuses his advances. Viola, our secret princess, is shipwrecked, losing her twin brother in the wreck. Not knowing that he was rescued by a pirate (smuggler), she decides to make her way in the world by joining Orsino, our Dark Lord’s court, as an eunuch.
Meanwhile, Olivia’s uncle, Sir Toby Belch, has been profiting by getting Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a knight who wants to woo Olivia, to provide him with booze and entertainment.
All is thrown into chaos when Orsino’s new eunuch is sent to woo Olivia and inspires a genuine interest in boys…
