Twelfth Night' Gender Bends For Shakespeare's Birthday

By Bridgette M. Redman

Shakespeare's plays often lend themselves to modern treatments with some suggesting current themes more than others.
When it comes to plays about gender identity as a social construct, it's hard not to think of "Twelfth Night," Shakespeare's comedy in which male actors play women pretending to be men, and both male and female characters fall in love with the same mixed gender character.
It's the main reason that Emilio Rodriquez joined forces with Wicked Green Productions to put on a one-night showing of "Twelfth Night" to mark Shakespeare's 450th birthday on April 23. As co-director, producer, script editor and the actor who plays Olivia, Rodriquez wanted the play to both explore gender identity and to be a celebration of the Bard's birth.
"We're tying in the party element," said Rodriquez. "It brings in a cohesive, modern feel to the play, but doesn't go against the text. Because it is music and a party, we're doing it on Shakespeare's birthday. The core of the text perfectly aligns with a party."
Rodriquez brought his idea to Bailey Boudreau, and they decided to cast an all-male troupe just as was done in Shakespeare's time, but they'd add yet another twist to it.
"When Shakespeare did use males as females, they were dressed up with female powder face, but it was very clear they were males. His females are so much bolder than his males," Boudreau said. "So for Shakespeare in his time to be writing females that would never act that way, it makes us easy to bring it into the current age without modernizing it, but making it modern."
Boudreau said all of this idea originally came from Rodriquez, who had studied gender identity in college and how it was all a social construct. Rodriquez asked Boudreau to be an actor in the play, and the Wicked Green artistic director is playing the part of Viola, the woman who dresses as a man after being shipwrecked in a strange land. From there, Boudreau's role grew.
"I gladly took (Viola) on and costume design," Boudreau said. "In a lot of one-on-one discussions of his concept, I was going along with that and adding some ideas about the set and doing a lot of minimalistic things. I like to do theater that makes the audiences have to choose things. We don't give them much – they decide what things mean."
Boudreau's role grew to that of costumer and co-director, and the two began to collaborate on how to make this play a new experience for its audiences.
"It was great to have a co-director," Rodriquez said. "I loved all of Bailey's suggestions, and we connected right away with a vision. It's a very good partnership."
One change is that the play is cut down from three hours to 75 minutes. The other is that the male actors playing female characters are not in drag. They also took advantage of the Michigan Actors Studio space where they will be performing. Michigan Actors Studio hosts comedy sports and improv troupes. One side has a red wall and the other side has a blue wall.
"It is very bold," Boudreau said. "You have to design accordingly. It just aided in the male-female action. Roses are red. Violets are blue. The red is the female side, the male is the blue side and the set was built around that."
Rodriquez pointed out that when you combine the red and blue backdrops, you get purple – or Violet – a color very similar to the name of the main character. He also said their set designer, Alexander Trice, worked with adding picture frames to the set that would suggest backgrounds like the sea or the count's courtroom.
"If we're going to have males playing females and not in drag and have the audience buy into that, we have to have a set that allows them to imagine it as well."
Since a one-night production leaves little time for news to spread about the show, Boudreau and Rodriquez said they're relying on social media and getting out a lot of posters in the Ferndale area. Also, all of their 10 actors are connected in the community. Since the performance is on a Wednesday, when other actors typically have the day off, they're hoping to see a lot of industry turn-out.
Rodriquez emphasizes that the performance is as much a party as it is a play.
"It is celebrating Shakespeare, and it still being alive so many years later," Rodriquez said. "Theater is a very viable art form, and we're celebrating one of its most accomplished places of origin. We're able to do that by bringing the idea of celebration, party and festivity and using a cast that is out-of-this-world funny. There are back flips and it is crazy. The idea of celebration is really what it is about. It's a celebration that we are in this art form together and it is a beautiful to think it has lasted this long."

PREVIEW:
'Twelfth Night'
Wicked Green Productions at Michigan Actors Studio, 648 E. Nine Mile, Ferndale. 7:30 p.m. April 23. 75 minutes. $10 adult, $4.50 student. http://www.facebook.com/wickedgreenproductions