2018 Review Twelfth Night Shakespeare in the Park

Patrick J. O'Hare (L), composer and performer Shaina Taub (eye), and Shuler Hensley as Sir Toby Discharge (R) with the BLUE community ensemble rotating cast of Public Works' 2018 musical accommodation of Twelfth Night,

I compared Shaina Taub's musical adaptation of "Twelfth Night" to a party and to a variety show when the Public Theater presented information technology in Central Park over Labor 24-hour interval weekend in 2016. The unusual production featured a cast of professional actors mixed with some 200 New Yorkers from community groups from all five boroughs, equally role of what the theater calls its Public Works project.
The show was plainly pleasing plenty to plenty people that the Public has brought information technology dorsum every bit one of the Delacorte'due south two major summer offerings, running now through August 19th. Many of the master cast members take returned, including Nikki M. James as Viola, the shipwrecked immature woman who lands on Illyria, disguising herself as a beau, unaware that her male twin Sebastian has likewise survived, much to the comic confusion of all the other characters. But there are besides some new bandage members who stand out, including Shuler Hensley as Sir Toby Discharge. And at that place are plenty other changes to justify the new production's billing as "re-imagined." I found the new version but every bit entertaining– just also improved every bit a work of theater.
One of the most obvious differences occurs before the play begins. The audience is invited on stage for a kind of pre-show carnival – we tin mingle with the actors, watch card tricks, bound rope, play a behemothic checkers game, and line up for a free bag of popcorn.
Because it'due south more taxing to perform for five total weeks rather than five days, the customs ensemble members are divided into 2 rotating casts, the blue and the cerise, who perform on alternate days. I saw the blueish cast members, who were noticeably more streamlined and in sync than what I remembered from 2016, undoubtedly because of the actress time to exercise. They felt more than like townsfolk from Illyria rather than non-actors thrilled to exist on a New York stage. It was as if the fun but chaotic partying was now largely relegated to the pre-show carnival.
Having had time to recover from the audacity of Shaina Taub's lyrics substituting for much of the Bard's poetry, I could ameliorate appreciate the songs of this ascension theater artist, whom Off-Broadway audiences might recognize from her performances in Hadestown, or Natasha, Pierre and the Neat Comet of 1812. Taub's songs are all tuneful; many make you want to dance. Yeah, her lyrics friction match her rocking music more than they do Shakepeare'southward iambic pentameter. But (unlike, say, "Head Over Heels" ) Shaina Taub'due south Twelfth Night makes an endeavor to brand a seamless whole out of verses written 4 centuries apart. She even incorporates a few of the Bard's words (Her first song begins "If music be the food of honey, play on, play on.") At the same fourth dimension (like "Head Over Heels") Taub uses Elizabethan comic tropes — the cross-dressing, the mistaken identity — to make some of her 21st century political points. Viola sings:

I experience so seen equally a guy
People move aside when i walk by
I felt so veiled equally a daughter
Invisible to the world

Rachel Hauck is now the breathtaking designer, replacing David Zinn. So when Shaina Taub, who every bit Festes (the role she played as well in 2016) performs the music that she'due south composed, she no longer does then on a keyboard set upward in the body of a green machine; now she stands on stage, playing the piano accordion. Gone as well are all the red umbrellas dangling over the stage, a signature feature of Zinn's set. However, in another major difference, at least on the dark I attended, there were a sea of umbrellas in the audience – considering it was pouring rain.
Just to clarify: Virtually all of us had umbrellas, just we weren't allowed to use them during the operation, because they would obstruct the view. There were ponchos for auction with the Shakespeare in the Park logo on them. The Public combines its no-umbrella policy with its policy of: The prove must go along; they rarely cancel a operation. They did pause information technology for about ten minutes during an specially savage burst well-nigh halfway through – merely not in the final xv minutes, when the outburst was even worse. This didn't ruin the performance for me; quite the contrary. Very few theatergoers left. You lot haven't lived until yous've attended a performance at the outdoor Delacorte in the pelting; it should be on every New Yorker's (water) bucket list.

Click on any photograph past Joan Marcus to encounter information technology enlarged, and read the caption.

Nikki M. James with Blue community ensemble

Andrew Kober (center)

Andrew Kober (center)

Jonathan Jordan and Daniel Hall (foreground)

Nikki M. James (foreground), Nanya-Akuki Goodrich (background), and Ato Blankson-Wood (foreground)

Troy Anthony and Nikki M. Jame

Nanya-Akuki Goodrich and Ato Blankson-Wood

Lori Brown-Niang (L), Shuler Hensley (R)

Shaina Taub (eye) with the BLUE customs ensemble rotating bandage

"12th Night"

Conceived past Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub
Music and Lyrics past Shaina Taub
Choreography by Lorin Latarro
Directed past Oskar Eustis and Kwame Kwei-Armah

Featuring Troy Anthony (Sebastian), Kim Blanck(Female Understudy), Ato Blankson-Wood(Orsino), Lori Chocolate-brown-Niang (Maria), Nanya-Akuki Goodrich (Olivia), JW Guido (Featured Illyrian), Daniel Hall (Sir Andrew Aguecheek), Shuler Hensley (Sir Toby Belch), Javier Ignacio (Male person Understudy), Nikki M. James (Viola), Jonathan Jordan (Antonio), Andrew Kober (Malvolio), Patrick J. O'Hare (Fabian), and Shaina Taub (Feste)

Community Partners: Brownsville Recreation Center (Brooklyn), Centre for Family unit Life in Dusk Park (Brooklyn), DreamYard (Bronx), The Fortune Lodge (Queens), and Military Resilience Foundation (all boroughs), along with alumni partners Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education (Bronx), Children's Aid, and Domestic Workers United.

Scene Blueprint by Rachel Hauck
Costume Design past Andrea Hood
Lighting Design by John Torres
Sound Design by Jessica Paz
Hair & Wig Design past Cookie Jordan
Managing director of ASL Jeremy Lee Stone
Fight Managing director Lisa Kopitsky
Orchestrations by Mike Brun
Music Coordinator Dean Sharenow
Music Supervisor J. Oconer Navarro
Music Manager Shaina Taub
Bandleaders Mike Brun and Shaina Taub
Production Stage Director Michael Domue

Twelfth Night runs through Baronial 19. The production is costless to the public.

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Source: https://newyorktheater.me/2018/07/31/twelfth-night-review-shakespeare-as-a-popcorn-musical/

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