WHAT YOU WILL
By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Directed by ERIC TUCKER
IN ROTATING REP WITH TWELFTH NIGHT
Central Square Theater —
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2016
Bedlam brought both productions to Central Square Theater, presented by The Nora Theatre Company.
Twelfth Night: June 9 – July 10, 2016
What You Will: June 10 – July 9, 2016
New York — Dorothy Strelsin
Theatre, 2015
Dorothy Strelsin Theatre, 312 West 36th Street, NYC
Previews began March 11, 2015; both productions officially opened March 22 and the engagement continued into early May. Bedlam performed Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in rotating repertory with itself—Twelfth Night (or What You Will) and What You Will (or Twelfth Night)—using the same five actors but radically different staging, atmosphere and distribution of roles.
THE STORY.
Everyone in Illyria is in love.
Almost no one is loved in return.
A shipwreck leaves Viola alone in a strange country, where she disguises herself as a man and enters the service of Duke Orsino. Orsino loves Olivia. Olivia wants nothing to do with him. Viola loves Orsino. And when Orsino sends Viola to plead his case, Olivia falls in love with Viola.
From there, desire moves through the play like a contagion.
Bedlam's What You Will was one of two radically different productions of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, performed in repertory by the same five actors. Where its companion production found the possibility of happiness in Shakespeare's romantic confusion, What You Will looked more closely at what love does to people when it isn't returned.
The company begins in an immaculate white world—beautiful, seductive, almost dreamlike. As people fall in love, that world becomes stained. Red spreads across clothing, bodies, walls and floor until desire has left its mark on nearly everyone.
And beneath the comedy, something darker emerges. Malvolio's humiliation becomes genuinely cruel. Viola's isolation is real. Gender and identity remain fluid, but the longing underneath them is not. People pursue fantasies of one another, mistake desire for truth, and discover how quickly love can turn into obsession, humiliation and grief.
Five actors play all of Shakespeare's characters, changing identities in full view of the audience as the comedy becomes increasingly intimate, sensual and unstable.
Everyone wants someone.
Everyone is transformed by wanting.
Not everyone survives it unchanged.
THE WORD.
NEW YORK TIMES CRITIC’S PICK
★★★★ Time Out NewYork
WBUR — Favorite Productions of 2016
ELLIOT NORTON AWARD - BEST VISITING PRODUCTION
“the mutability that any great work of art
possesses.”
“The Bedlam variations on Twelfth Night are of
subtler and deeper ambition. They use a minimal
ensemble in two productions to explore the
mutability that any great work of art possesses
— and the way we ourselves change such art by
the different ways we look at it.”
NEW YORK TIMES
“THE KIND OF ‘OBVIOUS’ IDEA THAT ONLY THE
MOST DARING OF ARTISTS WOULD TRY.”
WALL STREET JOURNAL
“Uproarious and visually spellbinding.”
“artfully stylized yet characterized throughout by
a surging immediacy.”
“you don’t know what to expect from moment to
moment.”
“just might be the event of the summer.”
THE BOSTON GLOBE
“Bedlam’s Transfixing, Twinned Twelfth
Nights.”
“the more stylized, surprising world.”
“tantalizing resonances between the two
productions.”
THE ARTS FUSE
“‘Twelfth Night’ captures the folly of love,
‘What You Will’ seems to capture the
passion.”
“a more somber and sensual production.”
“lovely ruminations on gender and love.”
“Bedlam proves again why they are one of
the best companies on the scene.”
EDGE
“a fever dream.”
WBUR
PEOPLE.
Original company
Andrus Nichols
Susannah Millonzi
Edmund Lewis
Tom O'Keefe
Eric Tucker
Creative and production team — New York City
Director — Eric Tucker
Set Design — Eric Tucker
Sound Design — Eric Tucker
Costume Design — Valérie T. Bart
Lighting Design — Les Dickert
Props — Violeta Picayo
Music — Tom O'Keefe & Edmund “Ted” Lewis
Production Stage Manager — Diane Healy
Assistant Stage Manager — Violeta Picayo Production photography — Jenny Anderson.
In Boston, Kelley Curran replaced Andrus Nichols.
Creative and production team — Boston
Director, Set & Sound Design — Eric Tucker
Lighting Design — Les Dickert
Costume Design — Valérie T. Bart
Production Stage Manager — Dominique D. Burford Production Photography — A.R. Sinclair Photography.