Twelfth Night Performance at Hofstra, a review

I attended the stage performance of Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night with my daughter. I have to honestly admit I may have not gone had it not been for my writing Professor giving us extra credit if we went and blogged about it. Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due and I thank Professor Lay for that chance. I completely enjoyed their production as well as my daughter, who had not read this play before that night. The cast did a wonderful job of interpreting Shakespeare's comedy and giving it their own spin. Firstly the play was set in Southern USA shortly after the civil war, the stage was a simple white porch with a curved staircase and balcony and branches hung with moss draped on them for a simple feeling of being in a southern plantation. The actors southern accents added some additional laughs as Shakespeare's old English words were spoken, you waited for a "y'all" to be said but it would never come. True to the original lines and words the actors instead relied on the speech dynamics, as well as facial, and body language to create characters that were more approachable and comfortable. The characters become a "Dukes of Hazard" sitcom and suddenly you didn't realize that they were talking in the Old English language anymore, you suddenly had a translator next to you. The character Feste strumming on his guitar and wearing tattered overalls reminded me of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and Olivia the Southern Belle. The director did an excellent job with balancing the pomp and prim and proper Victorian comedy play into a play for our time.