Shakespearean comedy is up next for Texarkana Repertory Company with "Twelfth Night," one of the famed playwright's late comedies that explores themes like love and gender through a tale of shipwrecked siblings.
TexRep presents the play at Stilwell Theatre on the Texarkana College campus Nov. 4-6 and 11-13 with Friday and Saturday shows at 7:30 p.m., Sunday shows at 2 p.m.
In "Twelfth Night," Shakespeare concocts a tale about twins, Viola and Sebastian, who are shipwrecked on the Illyrian coast and believe each other to be dead. Viola dons a male disguise and gives herself the name Cesario, meets Duke Orsino and falls in love. Orsino, though, is already in love with the countess Olivia, who in turn falls for "Cesario." With this amusing love triangle and other comedic arrangements, hilarity ensues.
Once again, TC's Michael Cooper, TexRep's artistic director, guides the TexRep thespians here, who are a mix of fresher TexRep faces and talents who performed with TexRep years ago. "Twelfth Night" is one of the Bard's last comedies.
But Cooper sees deeper commentary, too.
"It's a huge play about love. I think it's about your duty to be happy," Cooper said. "So some of the stuff between the lovers while humorous isn't the roll around kind of comedy that you get with Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch and the clown some of it becomes much more rom com to me."
He believes this approach to comedy was part of Shakespeare's growth as a playwright.
About the plot, Cooper said, "It's so simple to follow when you watch it. It's harder to explain." Expect sword fights, mistaken identities, revelations and, for most, things turning out OK.
As far as the staging is concerned, Cooper said the center of their stage is "very Globe Theatre" and from there they take a steampunk approach, including the costumes. "The whole idea is whatever you do you want to make the play come alive for today's audience," he said.
Cooper's most fond of directing comedies and loves doing Shakespeare. If presented correctly, Shakespeare is easy to understand. He says if you look at the language, characters talk more closely to how we Americans speak than the Brits speak.
And as a romantic comedy, Shakespeare's themes and plot points are used today all the time. "So it's not foreign," Cooper said, noting his cast numbers 10 people. It's Sarah Edwards who plays Viola.
"We don't really know a lot about their backstory. We kind of think that maybe they're from a family of pirates," Edwards said of these twins. Her love for Duke Orsino grows over time, which spurs the awkward love triangle onward.
"It's hysterical. It is so funny the whole time," Edwards said. Her lines tend to be more serious, played straight. But there are funny situational moments where Olivia is professing her love for Cesario/Viola, who rejects Olivia politely.
"There are moments with the Count when I'm basically professing that I'm a woman and I love him, and it's just right over his head. He completely misses it," said Edwards, for whom "Twelfth Night" is her favorite Shakespeare play.
She's wanted to play this specific role for a long time. Viola is a character she admires for the wit and more.
"To be cast in that part was the greatest thing," Edwards said.
(Admission: $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, $5 for TC students, faculty or staff, free with TexRep membership. Reservations: 903-831-7827. More info: TexRep.org.)