The play Twelfth Night was nothing like the last play that we had to attend for this class. While You Can't Take it with You was action packed, easy to understand, and very funny, this play didn't come close to entertaining me as much. Most of that is do to the fact I hate Shakespearian plays. The dialogue may have been neat 500 years ago, but just bores people today. Despite that, the acting, set, and directing was done very well. .
The play is all staged using the same set, but different areas of the elaborate set represent different places. The middle part of the set usually represented the garden, while he left hand side was where Orsino walked from when he was entering his court. This change of entrance place made the middle "garden" represent the king's court instead. The lighting was also used to make the set look different. The light director, John Scott did a great job controlling the brightness and timing for the lights.
But, the acting in the show is what really made it for me. The director, Eileen Hendrickson really knew what she had to work with and who to cast for the roles. The chemistry was definitely there, and all of the actors had great presence. In my opinion, Justin Bryan really did a wonderful job playing the drunken and pompous Sir Toby Belch. This may be because he has some of those qualities himself, but I"m sure if you ask him it's because he has talent. William Stover as Orsino also really worked for me. He came across as the nice guy that was needed for the role. He was very believable. The only character that didn't work for me was Brad Dell as Malvolio. Brad is one of the finest actors ever to grace the Westminster stage, but this role just seemed kind of forced. I don't know what it was, but it didn't seem realistic. The hair thing frightened me more than entertained me also. But, to me the show stealer was Melissa Cooper as Viola. This is unquestionably one of the hardest roles to play in all of theatre, but for a little I actually forgot that it was a woman playing that part.
