Twelfth Night

The most impressive part of that performance is the lighting and stage technology. Before the show, Ms.Guarino told us about this show is about Afrofuturism, which is a combination of African cultures with the technology. As we see the play, this was all played by black, brown people. All different personality, identity in blacks give us the acceptance and sympathy of black and brown people in the world. When the director told us to switch off the phone, the performances began to impress us immediately. It first started with a man in VR experience. This experience took us into an imaginative memory on the screen. The first word that I said is Oh my god. I have never thought about theatre can be actually like this. With all the photos on the screen, the popping music switched on as well. Then, many dancers come up to the stage, with the rhyming music and videos. It combined perfectly to the theme of futurism. On the other hand, the music itself is more on the African style: the drums, the lyrics, everything belongs to the African culture; it just blends in with future style of popping and auto tune. Moreover, the costume also has the influence on African culture: color and shape represent the overlap of the African culture. Cesario wears a white suit, but under his suit, the colorful dress represents the distinguishable culture. Moreover, the fool, Feste, also has a colorful clothes to highlight it as well. Everyone in some places have the special culture representative. Speaking about lighting, it is based on the scene change. For example, if it’s on the ship, the light will become blue and also with the changes of sea levels; this tells the audience what’s the scene is in and what’s it about mostly. When Viola first comes, she walks on the upstage and the light is in yellowish, in which represents the hierarchy level in the show; Viola is in a higher class. In the beginning of the show, the VR world is mostly covered with blue, and this highlights to dramatic and dreaming in the play. In addition, when Malvolio is being torture by the other servants, the director utilizes the screen and the VR system to highlight the terrible experiences that he faced. The director didn’t use any word or other things, but by showing the monstrous images, we, as the audience, can get the feelings of scared and frightening. Furthermore, they utilize electric sword to fight against each other; this then highlights the use of futurism.
A theme in this play will be love and gender. These themes are mixed with each other. Viola disguises herself as a man. This situation creates a sexual mess: Viola falls in love with Orsino but cannot tell him, because he thinks she is a man, and Orsino likes woman, Olivia. However, Olivia falls for Viola in her disguise as Cesario. There is a clear homoerotic subtext here: Olivia is in love with a woman, even if she thinks he is a man, and Orsino often says about Cesario’s beauty, suggesting that he is attracted to Viola as well. Moreover, the sea captain also falls in love with Sebastian, but his love cannot be satisfied, while Orsino and Olivia find their  heterosexuality from Sebastian and as well as Viola. This proposes the homosexuality in this play; the gender highlights the uncertainty of gender issues in it.
My favorite actor in this play is Sir Andrew, a person who can push up the overall atmosphere. When he appears, there must be some funny and cheerful actions around it with his own exaggerated words pronunciations. Although he will have some sexual jokes, he still gets to the point where everyone will laugh for his appearance. For example, “Slight, will you make an ass o' me?”  Also, his actions get to me as well. To perform out in a proscenium stage, the actors should overlap their movement to the audience. His actions enlarged perfectly to let us acknowledge his sense of humor, spanking on his butt, walking in weird steps, even talking to Sir Toby. When he fights with Cesario, the scene gets to a more funnier stage; the two person don’t know how to fight officially, so they use outside force(Sir Toby) to push fighting. Often time, Sir Andrew will cause others in injury, in which highlights his personality.
This theatre production really impress me about how modernization and Shakespeare can actually fit into each other. Also, afrofuturism fits in perfectly about the different body shapes of black, and brown people in the play. This gives us an outstanding perception of open minded in the future theatre production.