Smack in the middle of the Westport Country Playhouse summer season, the U.S. policy “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” (DADT) prohibiting open acts (and open questioning) regarding sexuality in the military was repealed.
Whether DADT was in existence under some other phrasing during the Elizabethan times when Shakespeare wrote the play that finished off the season at WCP has been under scrutiny by academicians for centuries. Was the bard gay? Was he bi-sexual? Was he straight? And does it matter?
The final production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” directed by Artistic Director Mark Lamos, is a DADT play for sure. Sexual ambiguity lay at the core of “Twelfth Night,” which has been called a comedy, and a tragedy, depending on who is analyzing it.
Confession: I had no clue about the meanings of all of the complex interactions that drive the drama of most Shakespearean plays. I was a literary type who memorized lines from Shakespeare’s plays because the “bard” said it better than anyone else.
Whenever I was love-struck, it was Shakespeare’s work I quoted. Sonnets and soliloquies. Somehow I managed to miss any of the memorable productions.
In fact the last time I saw a Shakespeare play, “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it was outdoors in the Berkshires. Along with the choking mist of bug spray, when Puck belayed between the birches in the woods, it was an anachronism that didn’t work.
I became averse to seeing Shakespeare live unless I could get to England where I was sure I’d hear the great performers and understand the passions that drove people to commit inexplicable acts. On the page, it worked for me. On stage? I barely sat through performances.
I am now reformed. “Twelfth Night” as directed by Lamos was lively and fabulous to watch. I thought it was groundbreaking. I actually listened to the words that came out of the actor’s mouths.
While it baffled me that Orsino did not know the “boy” he was using to woo his beloved Olivia was a girl, I was able to transcend what little hormonal attractions there were between most of the love interests onstage.
There was a rattle in the audience about the non-Elizabethan casting. Everyone wasn’t Caucasian. And the sets along with costuming crossed over between theatrical eras. There were festive Mylar balloons floating on ribbons above pile of sand in the shipwreck that strands Viola/Cesario. I loved that element.
Barring the academic arguments about why the play was named “Twelfth Night,” the standard reasoning is it represented celebration of the night the magi came to bring gifts to the Christ child. It was party. The balloons were so 2011. Clues for the clueless to bridge the gap. Ah, we are in the midst of festivities.
The director’s leap to bridge the great writings of another era with our texting-sexting society was notable. The production crossed boundaries by blending the eloquence with more current vernacular. The comedy was more accessible through the musical riffing of several decades.
The anachronistic “shtick” buoyed the brilliantly vaudevillian piece of what for me was performance art. Your ear, your eye, were engaged at all times. Yet the risks communicated the never-ending Shakespearean metaphors, similes, and revelations that are the “bard’s” timeless and profound truths.
It was the whimsy that kept the performance alive. It certainly was not repressed sexual feelings that were brewing between the lovers onstage. Not for one minute did I believe the misguided lovers had the hots for anyone. They “spoke” the bard quite well.
Lamos’ version of “Twelfth Night” sparkled with merriment while the always quotable lines flowed easily and the spectacle plus laughter kept the audience alert.
As the high season comes to a close at Westport Country Playhouse, I looked back at the plays, “Beyond Therapy,” “ Suddenly Last Summer,” “Lips Together, Teeth Apart,” and except for Maugham’s “The Circle,” ( yet it was Maugham who famously said, “I was a quarter normal and three-quarters queer, but I tried to persuade myself it was the other way round. That was my greatest mistake,”) all of WCP 2011 plays contained DADT angst whether hidden or overt, whether straights were dealing with gays, or bi-sexuals trying to find love.
“Twelfth Night” ultimately asks us to decide if it matters “who” one is when one is in the “bedroom” of any relationship. “ Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Love and sex are funny that way. Dramatists, writers, poets know this and they want you to know this too. They tell.
Ina Chadwick’s Mousemuse creates artistic programming within arts communities. Her sold out “Awake After Dark Storytelling” program continues at The Fairfield Museum and History Center. Visit http://www.mousemuse.com for storytelling and writing events.
I ask you, is there a better writer in the world than Ina Chadwick? I don’t think so. Westport is so, so lucky to have her. Keep writing, Ina.
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