WESTON, Vt. – “If music be the food of love, play on.”
The first line of Shakespeare’s classic play “Twelfth Night” is meant to set the tone for the romantic comedy – the story of twins separated by a shipwreck, a tangled love triangle, lust, loss, and mistaken identities. The complicated plot twists, clever humor, and musical elements make this one of the Bard’s most popular and frequently produced plays.
Currently in its final week at the Weston Theater Company’s Walker Farm, “The Twelfth Night Show” is scheduled to close Oct. 12, and you will want to catch it if you can.
The show was created by Weston Theater alumni Megumi Nakamura and Jacob Brandt, birthed during a 2022 writers’ retreat. The pair decided to adapt “Twelfth Night” in part because of the musical aspect, and that the play features strong women.
What they have produced is a 90-minute, wholly imaginative, finespun, multilayered, genius adaptation of Shakespeare’s words and lyrics that pays homage to the complex story, while riffing on it, and winking at it, bringing to the stage a version we have not seen before. Colorful, funny, and uplifting, the delightful production is sort of a show within a show within a puppet show. The musical features 13 incredible, original songs ranging from luscious melodies to rousing comedic ditties, and a four-person cast that can seemingly do anything.
Shakespeare’s story is “continually relevant,” said Brandt. “The content is so funny and humanist.”
Nakamura commented, “The timeless themes of identity, love, grief, and class…these are universal stories.”
Speaking of universal, this innovative adaptation is set in outer space.
The premise is introduced at the start of the show via a recorded announcement telling the audience that, due to an unfortunate incident of mass food poisoning, the entire 16-person cast of “Twelfth Flight: The Intergalactic Twelfth Night (An Odyssey Through Love and Space)” had fallen ill and would not be able to perform. But, as the show must go on, the play would instead be presented by the onstage band: Jacob, Eileen, Allie, and Seth.
The four musicians thrust into the spotlight to play the roles of Viola, Olivia, Orsino, and Malvolio, as well as all the other parts, are played here by Brandt, Eileen Doan, Allie Seibold, and Seth Eliser.
Brandt’s character Jacob takes on Malvolio and other roles, and Brandt is the show’s musical director. Both Brandt and the fictional Jacob have a Master of Fine Arts from the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Actor-musicians Eliser and Seibold are married, having first met at the Weston Theater Company eight years ago. They perform together as a band, but this is their first time acting in a musical with one another. Doan, an actor, musician, and songwriter, is making her first appearance at the company.
Each of the gifted performers started playing and writing music at an early age, and have clearly mastered a variety of musical instruments. Seibold confessed she learned electric and stand-up bass for the show. All four actors also possess incredible singing voices.
Longtime Weston Theater supporters and audience members Barbara Bishop and Steve Adams told the cast at the postshow talkback that they had read Shakespeare’s original version in preparation for seeing the show. Laughing, Bishop mentioned how torturous that experience was, but added, “This [production] was so much fun and helped me understand the play. It even made me want to read it again, which is astounding.”
Bishop thanked the cast for what was her “favorite show of the summer.”
“This is why I come to the theater, to leave feeling good,” Bishop relayed.
As the final production of the Weston Theater’s 89th season, “The Twelfth Night Show” brings an auspicious end to a fabulous summer run, and will certainly see a bright future. Weston’s artistic director Susanna Gellert said the company plans to support the production as much as possible as it goes forward, and we look forward to seeing where that might be.
Get tickets at www.westontheater.org.