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Though they speak it beautifully, you needn’t follow William Shakespeare’s lines to thoroughly enjoy the Summit Players adaptation of Twelfth Night. The high-energy physical performances and intellectual and emotional transparency of its six-member cast give you plenty to recognize, laugh about, cheer for and ponder. It’s as if Shakespeare’s clowns stole every role, but they’re soulful clowns with big feelings and desires.
The target audience is “children and communities regardless of income or background,” reads the mission statement. Performances are free in Wisconsin State Parks all summer. A workshop for children in acting and Shakespeare is offered before each show. The script has been lovingly cut to 75 minutes. You get the lines you need to follow the story. At other times, the words just serve as music or emotive sound. Sometimes they’re mixed with stirring vocal harmonizing, beautifully performed. A little placard with a plot summary leans against an old trunk down center in case you get lost.
The marvel is that these tactics actually help to focus the play’s ideas. Director-adaptor Maureen Kilmurry deserves enormous credit for that. Her up-to-the-minute interpretation pits the longing for human connection against the too frequent sense that who we are is not how others see us. We may not be as special as we think, for one thing. Regarding gender—so prominent a complication in Twelfth Night—clothing makes the man, figuratively. Personhood and gender are distinct experiences. Assumptions can be cruel. Such concerns struck me at the recent performance at Three Bridges State Park.
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This is Summit’s fourth summer and fourth Shakespeare comedy, all of it guided by Kilmurry, who has taught classical acting at Marquette for 20 years and directed many Shakespeare productions on the university’s mainstage. Summit was founded by her students (all but one of the Twelfth Night cast trained with her), and the company’s work represents her aesthetic. That she and I are colleagues at Marquette has no bearing on my admiration for her artistry. And yes, the charismatic actors—all but UW-Milwaukee grad Brittany Curran—were also my students. Hats off to them all: Joe Picchetti, Hannah Klapperich-Mueller, Michael Nicholas, Caroline Norton and Nick Parrot. With super-fast changes of bits of Elizabethan clothing over jeans and T-shirts, they play their contrasting straight and goofball roles to the hilt. And as ensemble members, their love for one another is infectious.
Upcoming Milwaukee area performances are Aug. 10 at Havenwoods State Park, Aug. 11 at Kohler-Andre State Park and Aug. 12 at Pike Lake State Park. Visit summitplayerstheatre.com for a full schedule of workshop and performance times and directions.
