Twelfth Night - Shakespear In The Park — Page 5

The Donmar West End production just used the songs that were in the script already and added melody to them and i'm also pretty sure there were various bits of underscoring throughout. Feste also came on 5minutes before Act 2 eating an orange and then proceeded to do a 5minute african drumming solo :) but no new songs were added etc. so i think like others have said it varies from production to production.

Request for a spoiler: at what point do Raul and Anne sing?

ANSWER FOR SPOILER: It's the scene halfway in-ish, where Raul asks the fool to sing, if there were two of them then it was the second one (I'm too lazy to go read back through the text right now). It was a moment that I sat there thinking, "god, I really wish Raul would join in David Pittu for a real musical moment right now" and lo and behold, one verse later that happened exactly, with Anne singing as well.

I really liked the music in this production. I don't know if it was the music itself or if it was the direction of how it integrated. Usually I find it painful to watch music added to Shakespeare in the Park productions, particularly when the music is to be sung by the fool because it seems to be a time-waster. In this production, the musical bits were definite highlights. Having a mini orchestra on the side of the stage at almost all times helped a bit.

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Save the first moment we see Viola sing...I'm not sure they really added much music. Pretty much all of those songs are already written in, they just addded the choice to have some characters sing along...which was a little strange at times. The underscoring of every important dramatic moment was a little silly as well.

But generally, the actual songs themselves sound pretty nice.

0/3

I guess it's ok, I did already have tickets to something else tonight, but I would have exchanged them.

What time would be best to get there for the stand by line? Do they normally have tickets left to give out at that time?

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Yep, that's the one.

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Pretty basic. Grass, with a little hill or two. I was actually disappointed with the set... not that it's bad, but because I really enjoyed the set back in `03's Twelfth Night, with the giant wooden "wave", so this set seemed a little plainer to me.

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Saw the show last night!!! I'd say it was about 3/4 full.

We wetre going to get there early, but arrived at 12:45 and got tickets and there was a HUGE stack left.

Then, me and 3 other people I was with won the virtual line thing! So we had about 8 extra tickets total.

I saw it tonight as well. My roommate won the virtual line, so we both went.
It was my first time seeing Twelfth Night live (I've read it many times though), and I thought it was great.
Hamish Linklater was so funny. Loved him!
And I really felt the songs added so much to it. Not to mention hearing Anne, Audra, and Raul sing together was amazing. :)

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I was there tonight and really, really enjoyed it. I mean, I might be biased, because Twelfth Night has always been one of my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, but that also means I'm more likely to get angry if they screw something up. Overall, the production was very good. It dragged a bit in parts, especially in the third act, but I think that's a fault of the play as much as the production.

Audra was phenomenal. I don't think I've ever seen her be really funny before, but she definitely gets the biggest laughs in the play. Although Hamish Linklater as Andrew Aguecheek wasn't far behind. I'd never imagined the character played that way, but he really nailed the physicality of it. Actually, a lot of what I liked about the show was the physicality, the vast majority of which wasn't stage-direction-based.

Anne Hathaway certainly wasn't bad, and Viola is kind of a flat role, but she didn't exactly exude star quality. Actually, she was good, but with a cast full of so many standouts, she tended to get a little lost in the mix. Lovely voice, though.

The real star of the production is the music, and (accordingly) David Pittu as Feste the fool. The music is contemporary, but fits seamlessly into the play, and Pittu KILLS every song he has. I've been humming the closing number for hours, and I suspect it'll be stuck in my head for weeks.

I saw it with my aunt, and as we were leaving we agreed that we had to find another time to go soon, because once the reviews come out, we suspect that it'll be a very hot ticket.

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Woah - I've never heard the role of Viola characterized as "flat" before! She's been shipwrecked, lost her brother (she thinks), changed her sexual identity and fallen in love. There has to be something there - If you can get your hands on the recently released DVDs of PLAYING SHAKESPEARE, watch the first episode on disc 4, and see what Judi Dench as Viola can do with one word!

Do they post on the website if the show is cancelled?

Updated On: 6/13/09 at 03:05 PM

I really hope it will go on! My friend won tickets for tonight. Keep praying to the rain Gods! :)

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