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TRIUMPH OF THE THE WILL
One of the many things to love about
this town, aside from the two degrees of
separation, Sasquatch-like Stipe Hunts, or
the sudden appearances of Corey Feldman
like Tinkerbell (only not as tall), is our pre
dilection for turning random events into
impromptu festivals. House parties become
block parties, club gigs suddenly turn into
epic rock happenings, pub crawls transform
into drunken mass migrations. The Rose of
Athens Theatre company, the UGA Department
of Theater and Film Studies, and the Town &
Gown Players had no idea they had all sched
uled Shakespeare comedies practically on top
of each other (As You Like It, The Taming of
the Shrew and Twelfth Night, respectively),
but they banded together and did what we do
here, turned the happenstance into an event,
the Serendipity Shakespeare Festival, hope
fully the first of many.
The T&G Players present Twelfth Night; through June 19.
The festival wraps up with Town & Gown's
production of Twelfth Night, and it's a fine
production indeed. Shakespeare's comedy
about crossdressing, mistaken identities and
wine-fueled pranking is given a fast-paced and
breezy treatment by its veteran cast under the
direction of Fran Teague, who's forgotten more
about how to stage the Bard of Avon properly
than most people will ever know.
Viola (Joanna Eldredge) is the last sur
vivor of a shipwreck off the coast of Illyria,
having lost her beloved brother and all her
belongings. Alone and vulnerable in a strange
country, she disguises herself as a boy and
works her way into the household of the
Duke Orsino (Patrick Naijar), becoming the
Duke's go-between in courting the Countess
Olivia (Jayne Lockhart), who has lost her own
brother and father and is in mourning. Though
she has zero interest in the Duke, Olivia finds
herself very much drawn to the lovely young
lad His Grace has sent to talk to her...
Meanwhile, Olivia's uncle Sir Toby Belch
(Derek Adams), a drunkard and merry prank
ster, has been idling with his buddy Sir
Andrew Aguecneek (Patrick Hooper). Bored
and looking for someone to punk, they settle
on Malvolio (Mike Smith), Olivia's uptight
Puritan steward and perpetual buzzkill.
Enlisting the help of Olivia's maid Maria
(Bryn Adamson), the servant Fabian (Ashley
Laramore) and the town jester Feste (Jennifer
Spradley), Sir Toby embarks on an elaborate
scheme to humiliate Malvolio by playing on
the steward's ambition to marry up, tricking
him into making himself increasingly ridicu
lous in an effort to impress Olivia.
This is a very silly play, packed with more
comic misunderstandings than a season of
"Three's Company" and rife with some of
Shakespeare's bawdiest material, which the
cast plays up to the hilt. The pacing is brisk,
Teague keeping her actors in constant motion,
and the show's two-and-a-half-hour run time
flies by. An interesting choice has Olivia and
Sir Toby speaking as genteel Southerners,
which gives their delivery a surprisingly
pleasant texture. Eldredge and Lockhart do
good work as the heroines of the piece, with
startling onstage chemistry between them as
Olivia pursues what she believes is one fine
piece of boy, but Adams, Adamson, Spradley
and Smith threaten to run away with this
show with their over-the-top comic turns.
Teague has elected not to go period with
this production, so Illyria (in reality a medi
eval Balkan state located roughly where mod
ern-day Albania sits) here is a beach resort,
with the nobility in tropical clothing and the
servants in polo shirts. The set and costumes
are done in a palette of pastels, easy on the
eyes and fitting for an Illyria that looks like
St. Kitt's.
What emerges is a terrific production
of Twelfth Night, a great way to end the
Serendipity Shakespeare Festival, and-—I can't
say this enough—yet one more reason to be
happy to live in Athens.
John G. Hetties
Athens Community Theatre, 115 Grady Ave. Showing
Thursday-Saturday, June 16—18, at 8 p.m., and
Sunday, June 19, at 2 p.m. Tickets $15 Friday and
Saturday, $12 Thursday and Sunday ($12 students
and seniors, all shows).
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