Shakespeare comedy gets modern makeover

Two theatre groups in Westman are teaming up for the first time to present a modernized reinterpretation of William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night” that hits the spotlight this week.

About 30 cast members unite Brandon University’s theatre students with performers from the Assiniboine Theatre Company at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium from Thursday to Saturday.

BU drama instructor Rochelle Douris, the play’s director, said it has been a positive experience working with the theatre company, which reached out to her last year for a collaboration.

Douris said she hopes this is only the beginning of more partnerships between theatre groups in the city.

“I see in the future for Brandon that this could be a very cohesive theatre community where each entity that’s a part of it is supportive of the others,” she said.

Douris originally hails from Toronto, where she said it can be challenging to attract a big audience because there are so many productions simultaneously competing for people’s attention and talent. Brandon differs because it features a smaller number of shows per year that don’t typically overlap.

“I just feel like I’ve had my pick of truly talented cast members to be able to work with in this show,” Douris said.

Auditions began in December followed by rehearsals in January, which gave the cast a few months to get accustomed to the Shakespearean text and dialogue, ask questions and experiment with their characters, she said.

“This is actually my third time directing ‘Twelfth Night,’ so I’ve gradually been having a little bit more fun with it each time,” Douris said.

The story focuses on Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian, who get separated during a shipwreck. Viola disguises herself as a young man and starts working as a servant for a duke during her continued efforts to find her brother.

The drama unfolds as Viola becomes entangled in a love triangle before her true identity is revealed.

Douris said the musical production is based on her son-in-law Drew Douris-O’Hara’s adaption, which is a shortened version of the play that still retains the value of the script and includes two additional sonnets.

She took the liberty of setting the songs in the show to contemporary music in genres such as country, K-pop, rap and folk, as well as transforming the original setting from the fictional city of Illyria to a music festival in Illyria.

“There’s a big Illyria fest banner and there’s a main stage, and we’re selling merchandise in the lobby that is very much music festival merchandise,” Douris said.

As director, she has focused on retaining the language and classical elements while making the musical accessible for all audiences to ensure people understand what’s happening in the plot.

“The thing that I’ve become aware of is how much Shakespeare has become something almost treated as like a foreign language by people,” Douris said.

“There’s so many words in it that we’re not familiar with anymore, so even though it’s written in English, it still feels foreign to people sometimes.”

She said she doesn’t want people to feel afraid or intimidated by Shakespeare but rather see the production as an opportunity to have fun and connect with the storyline in a modern way.

“We’re having a certain amount of reverence towards it, but we also want it to be so enjoyable, so fun, that people will walk away and think to themselves … ‘I really would like to go and try more Shakespeare because that was not what I was expecting at all,’” she said.

Olivia Mae, who’s part of a K-pop band in the festival, is played by Mae Bartolome, a third-year BU student majoring in biology and minoring in theatre and anthropology.

“I love the spin of it being in a music festival. It’s really hard thinking of how this play could be in any other setting, especially in a modern setting,” she said, adding that it’s been fun to perform and explore different music genres.

A song she performs with her band The Olivias in the show infuses the lyrics from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 53 with K-pop music and choreography heavily inspired by “KPop Demon Hunters,” she said.

Despite her initial difficulties grasping the dialogue and text, Bartolome said she has enjoyed experimenting with the portrayal of her character, who she described as being boy-obsessed.

“It’s become a lot easier to read the language because of … the way that (Douris) has been able to translate the meaning of each line through acting and body language and emotion. It just made it more easier to digest what’s happening,” she said.

Bartolome said she is interested in acting in another Shakespeare play or musical adaptation in the future and enjoyed the opportunity to work alongside another local theatre group.

Tickets for the show can be purchased at the auditorium’s box office or by calling 204-728-9510.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com