by Sam Juliano
William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (Or What You Will) like the Bard’s immortal comedies is a wildly improbable and deliciously entertaining fantasy that confirms that beneath the surface is life’s darkest, most terrible truths. Indeed the wistful production suggests that life is full of sadness and that the best years of life are fleeting, and many of the people we interact with, are capricious and cruel. In such a world, suggests the Bard, it is our duty to seek out and cherish whatever happiness can be perpetuated.
Of course, the farcical nature of Twelfth Night asks the audience to believe some rather implausible facts surrounding mistook identity, falling in love and the physical appearance of fraternal twins that stretches the realm of possibility, but that’s all part of the merriment.
The Pearl Company’s first production of the new season-presently in previews- is a spirited production of this oft-performed and beloved work, which makes the most of unimaginative staging and a particularly uninspired use of what has always been known as one of this work’s strongest assets–the use of music. (more…)
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