Westfield State’s Theatre Arts Department returns once with a performance directed by Eric Parness. The show in question is “William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night or What You Will” which has played throughout the back half of this week starting with Wednesday November 20th, continuing onwards into a pair of shows premiering tomorrow, and it looks like Parness and the Theatre Arts Department have another success on their hands with initial turnouts of the filled audience at Ely Studio Theatre.
“Twelfth Night” is one of the few comedies in Shakespeare’s famous career, telling the story of a pair of twins separated by disaster at near birth, and their separated growth into royalties, as well as their struggles towards achieving future loves. Being a comedy this does of course come with the hijinks of these characters’ separate plotlines interacting with each other, as well as a myriad of side characters bringing comedic relief and much more audience-interacting content to the story. It also features some brief musical numbers performed by cast members, and this particular telling features some modernized humor for a 2000s audience watching a 1600s play unfold. One would think this would clash with the Shakespearean English the cast had to learn, but from the audience’s laughter throughout the play, particularly its back half, it seems that struggle wasn’t as impactful in the long run. Additionally, for those who still felt there was a struggle with understanding the story, the playbills supplied to students featured a scannable QR Code complete with scene summaries, character descriptions, and a director’s comment on the setting for attendees to peruse and understand the show all the better.
Among these attendees are the group of friends Zara Rivett, Chris Lannan, and Irini Mahida, who showed up to support their friends, and all had much praise to give, and beyond just the performances either. Ms. Mahida for example thought “the costumes were all really unique to the characters and really suit each individual actor or actress very well” or Mr. Lannan was truly surprised at everyone’s Shakespearean English performances, adding “I’m amazed at how everyone was able to remember all their lines for that long.”
One of those cast members working with such a task is Summer O’Neil, who portrays one of the humorous side characters of Fabian, being written for this play as a female character while initially male in Shakespeare’s original work. When she was asked about her performance Ms. O’Neil does admit to agreement with the supposed struggle, saying “it was one of my most difficult shows to work on because I’ve never done Shakespeare before, but it was a lot of fun after I did the research,” specifying “it was difficult at first but once you piece the whole story together it all makes perfect sense.”
WSU’s Theatre Arts Department’s performance of “William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night or What You Will” will continue into its final day tomorrow with 2 performances, one at 1:30pm and another at 7:30 that evening in Ely Studio Theatre, tickets are available both at the door and online through an email link students received earlier this week, at prices of $8 for students, $10 for staff/faculty, and $12 for general admission, as to if you should take advantage of this offer you should listen to Ms. Rivett: “I loved the show, I loved how funny it was and how well the actors worked together…yes I would recommend it, it was nice to sit back and watch a story unfold.”
