The South Carolina Shakespeare Company
After a short hiatus to regroup and “recreate,” the South Carolina Shakespeare Company returns with the Bard’s comedy, Twelfth Night, directed by SCSC managing director Scott Blanks. This play has gained the reputation of being the perfect Shakespearean romantic comedy, full of ravishing language and rich characterization along with a deep and touching strain of melancholy which hits the mark in this investigation of love lost and love found.
Many have thought that Twelfth Night was so named because it was first preformed on the feast of the Epiphany and that the subtitle, “What You Will,” means “Call It What You Like,” or “Whatever.” The comedy also yielded such phrases as “cakes and ale,” “present laughter,” and “westward ho.”
Shakespeare wrote this engaging play in 1600 at the height of his comic genius, and it remains one of the greatest literary examinations of the power of love. And, for movie fans who are also Shakespeare devotees, the story picks up where Shakespeare in Love lets off!
Twelfth Night is set on the island of Illyria, a magical place like Shakespeare’s Bohemia in A Winter’s Tale and the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. Mr. Blanks has wisely set this production in the Victorian Era, an effective choice that mirrors the class conscious society of the play, and the islanders include both indigenous inhabitants and old colonials.
The play begins with the aftermath of a storm and a shipwreck. A set of twins, Viola and Sebastian (Sara Blanks and Tracy Steele), each believing the other dead, set off a series of attractions and distractions with the islanders they encounter. Orsino and Olivia (Darion McCloud and Ashley Valocin), are the reigning aristocrats in this hierarchical world who constantly over-indulge in love and grief.
