Backblog – Friday, April 24th

Friday, April 24th, marked the first evening of a theater-intensive period for us. Mer had won tickets at the CVCA auction to see Kent State’s production of Twelfth Night. We had seen productions at Kent State before, and we were looking forward to this one.

The theater is semi-circular with colosseum-style seating that goes three quarters of the way around. It only seats about 100-200 people, and so is quite intimate and the actors do not have or need microphones. The set was very simple – it was a series of platforms set about the stage, and there were tall and thin curtains at the back of the set that were used very effectively at the start of the play to indicate a ship that was going down in a storm (the banners waved back and forth as if in a violent wind).

I am pretty familiar with Twelfth Night; we own two different copies of it on DVD, and we have seen it in the theater before. So, I had no trouble with the plot or the language or in keeping track of the characters.

Overall, the play was quite good. I was a little surprised at a few of the casting decisions. Most notably, the woman who played Viola (a major role) had trouble with delivering lines. She had them all memorized, but they were all said essentially the same way, no matter what emotion the play was calling for. As such, her role came across as flat. I think the director may have been going for a “stranger-in-a-strange-land” effect since the young woman had an accent and was exotic looking, but there were times where her monotone delivery of a line undercut what was going on around her. It was an odd choice for a leading role.

Some of the other major roles were quite excellent. The actor playing the uptight steward of the house, Malvolio, was just fantastic. He played the stringent joy-killer with a pompous air, and after he is fooled into thinking that the great lady of the house loves him, his comedic timing was wonderful. The others of the household were also excellent actors – Sir Toby and the man he is mooching off of, Sir Andrew, Maria the housemaid and the Fool of the house all pulled off their roles with gusto and with vigor. The multi-stage set was used to good effect to indicate where the action was taking place, and there was some fun but limited interaction with the audience. I did feel bad for the actors (and for us) in that the auditorium was really uncomfortably hot. I’m not sure if the air conditioning was broken or if Kent State had not turned it on yet since it was still April.

All in all, it was a good production and entertaining, and since Mer had gotten the tickets at about half price at the auction, it was a very successful outing.