A lovesick Duke, a grieving Countess, misunderstandings and mistaken identities made for side-splitting comedy at the Shepard Park Amphitheatre Saturday afternoon. The Troy-based troupe Will Kempe’s Players performed Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night or What You Will” before an enthusiastic audience.
The production included music, dancing and audience participation, including sharing a prop, a loaf of bread, with those in front-tier seats. Most of the play was performed in front of the stage with actors moving through the audience and the surrounding park. The actors often found their lines competing with horn blasts from ships on Lake George, a hazard of outdoor performances in Shepard Park. However, sounds from the lake, even the Minne-Ha-Ha’s calliope, only added to the comedy.
“Twelfth Night” is set in Illyria, where Duke Orsino is pining for Olivia, but Olivia will not have his love as she is mourning the deaths of her father and brother. Olivia’s household is divided, with her prim steward Malvolio dampening the revelry of her uncle Sir Toby Belch, her lady in waiting Maria, her jester Feste and Toby’s friend Sir Andrew.Thrown into the mix is a shipwreck that washes siblings Sebastian and Viola ashore, with neither realizing the other had survived.
Viola dresses as a man and takes the name Cesario. Viola falls in love with Orsino, although Orsino believes her to be the man Cesario; Olivia falls in love with Cesario who is really the woman Viola.The slapstick, often bawdy, antics of Feste, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria added comedic relief, and a prank played at the expense of the Puritan Malvolio included one of the play’s best-known quotes:
“but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”
Shepard Park has a long history of hosting dramatic performances and pageants since the park and open-air forum was dedicated to the memory of Edward Morse Shepard in 1917. The Will Kempe’s Players, named for Elizabethan-era actor William Kempe, formed in August 2017. Saturday’s “Twelfth Night” was the Players second Lake George performance; they debuted in Shepard Park this past July with “Othello.” Molly Waters, who plays Viola/Cesario says they definitely would like to return to Lake George next summer. Admission to the play was free with donations suggested.
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