If you’re missing being able to dress to the nines for a night on the town, Twelfth(ish) Night, based on William Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, or What You Will, is an opportunity to bring out your Sunday best. Audience members can have a glass of champagne with the cast before the show, as well; these elegant elements of theatre culture are not things people get to experience much these days, says director David Radford, who also adapted the play with his wife Christina Patterson.
“A lot of people don’t get dressed up if they’re going out to clubs. It’s a different time now,” says Radford. “It’s fun to create that feeling of sophistication and real dinner-party revelry in that time period.”
The adaptation is only an hour long, whereas Shakespeare’s plays usually ran for much longer; Radford says this was a big challenge in the adaptation process.
“We don’t ever want to lose any of the words, any of the poetry, but we know that we have to reduce it down to one hour to make it this punchy hour of fun and frivolity; it’s a lot of work,” says Radford.
Shakespeare often repeated the main themes in his plays because in Elizabethan times, says Radford, audience members were often drinking, talking to their friends, and yelling at the actors on stage. Radford says the repetition in plots can be edited out in his adaptions because audiences are more attentive now.
“You can actually find those and edit those down first so you only have to say the plot of that particular scene once, and then from there it’s really trying to find the essence of the story,” says Radford. “What’s the quickest route through the story? And hopefully you haven’t sabotaged the beautiful poetry that is Shakespeare.”
The original play is over 400 years old. Radford and Patterson adapted this play specifically for Craigdarroch Castle, says Radford, adding that people with a large manor like Craigdarroch often invited friends over to watch performers, have cocktails, socialize with the actors, and then see a performance; Radford hopes to emulate that experience with this show.
“The gentlemen are all in tuxedos and the ladies are all in gowns and we have a champagne service for about half an hour,” says Radford. “You can talk to all the actors—they’re all right there mingling with you—and then half an hour goes by and everybody makes their way up to the ballroom and then we do this one-hour version of Shakespeare’s comedy.”
There’s a younger demographic of small groups of women coming out to these kinds of events now, says Radford, because people crave this sense of special occasion.
“It really works because the castle is such a beautiful backdrop. It’s the most expensive set we don’t ever have to pay for,” says Radford, with a laugh. “It’s a gorgeous place to go. We call the whole thing ‘a kingdom for a stage’; I don’t think there’s a lot [of events] where people can dress up anymore, and I think there’s kind of a magic in that.”
Radford says working with Patterson—whom he met while working on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing—has added a lot of passion and energy to their marriage.
“We take classic work and then we reduce it down,” says Radford. “We work very hard together. We’re both of one mind.”
Twelfth(ish) Night
Various days and times, Wednesday, March 28 to Saturday, April 14
$32 to $35, Craigdarroch Castle
thecastle.ca