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One of Shakespeare’s most studied and best-loved plays is showing at The New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich. One of his funniest comedies, which has a complicated yet hilarious plot.
A young woman, Viola (played by Poppy Miller), cross dresses and uses the name Cesario as her own in order to get the man she loves, Duke Orsino (Jonathan Broadbent). However, there is a love triangle going on. Duke Orsino loves Countess Olivia (Syreeta Kumar) who loves Cesario! Just when you thought you’d got your head around it, Viola’s presumed dead twin brother Sebastian comes into the manic scene. Living with Olivia is a lively character, Sir Toby Belch (Oliver Dimsdale). The pompous steward of the house is Malvolio, he is deeply in love with not only Olivia but himself. In the end, Orsino realises that he loves Viola and they marry, Olivia falls in love with Sebasitian and they agree to marry. Maria (Gemma Saunders) and Sir Toby Belch also marry, which leaves Malvolio (Ferdy Roberts) on his own.
The acting really worked in this performance; all actors and actresses worked hard and showed a genuine passion. This came across in their performance, particularly with Viola playing a man, it was only when you saw she had long hair you remembered it was a woman!
The lighting is extremely basic, being just white lights pointing at the stage and no colour filters. This is similar to being in the Globe theatre where lighting is also minimum. Also to give that Shakespeare touch with a modern twist, all actors were in contemporary costumes except for just one character, Sir Toby Belch, who was in full seventeenth century costume.
The sound was all made live by the actors and two musicians but was sometimes a little unbearable being high pitched squeals. What I didn’t understand was the sudden outburst of music with song and dance and then adding a few childish games; a little boring after a while.
Overall, a pretty good show but could easily be compressed into an hour if unnecessary music was cut. I would however recommend you go and see it.
Sam Hume, Sudbury Upper School
23rd October 2008
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