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The must see play of Philly’s holiday season…

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…is over four hundred years old. In the right hands, Shakespeare can still bring it. Twelfth Night will be playing at Pig Iron until the 22nd. You should go see it. From my piece in the Inky (Jawnts-endorsed), linked above, on the joys of a the ancient comedy (photo courtesy of Pig Iron):

The clever nuances that an Elizabethan audience would immediately appreciate sail over the heads of all but the most 20131215_inq_cu1jawnts15-awell-schooled contemporary watchers. So the near-eternal hilarities of crotch-grabbing and drunken tomfoolery must be played up, the costumes made outrageous, and the set enchanting.

Pig Iron Theater’s production of Twelfth Night effortlessly delivers on all of these levels, the play opening with a live band, paisley and fedora-clad, ambling around a huge skateboard ramp set against the wall to facilitate amusing entrances and exits. Lantern-jawed Duke Orsino (Dito van Reigersberg) struts on stage, shirt unbuttoned to the navel, his opening monologue aided by his exaggerated languidness.

Pig Iron chose wisely with Twelfth Night, a play that can be easily tailored to modern sensibilities. Not only is it full of excellent one-liners (“Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage”), but after Shakespeare sets up the usual complex lovers’ quandaries, he clearly becomes more taken with the comic antics of the secondary plot.

 

 

 

 



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