A classic play has returned to Moscow with the University of Idaho Theater Department’s production of the Shakespearian play “Twelfth Night,” showing at 7:30 p.m. April 18-20 and April 25-27 at the Hartung Theater.
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Travis Gray rehearses his lines for his role of Orsino and Cory Williamson practices playing the ukulele for his role as Feste for William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. University of Idaho Theatre will perform at 7:30 p.m. in the Hartung Theater, during Moms Weekend April 19-21.
The theater department does a Shakespeare play once every couple of years, and it’s always a great experience for the students, director and theater professor Chris DuVal said.
“It’s a terrific opportunity that we give ourselves at least once a couple of years” DuVal said. “It requires so much of the actors, emotionally, physically, intellectually and vocally. It’s such a valuable experience just from what we all learn by doing these plays.”
To play a Shakespeare role takes so much as a performer because it is so challenging in so many aspects, Emily Nash-Gray, who plays Maria in the production, said.
“Shakespeare is like a marathon … you have to be in shape in all aspects of the work, you have to be physically in shape and technically in shape. You have to be constantly working on your craft, but then you also have to be working on you as a person and your inspiration and where all those things come from that feed your creative spirit,” she said.
The classic Shakespeare comedy follows a tale of mistaken identities, sensual romance and love-struck characters.
“It’s a play about what it’s like to lose love, what is love, what is love between a man and a woman but also what is it to be in connection with another human being,” DuVal said. “I think the pieces of humanity that the play explores are all pieces that young students are able to connect with well.”
One of the most known challenges of a Shakespeare play is the dense language that can sometimes be hard to understand for audiences and a bit off-putting at times, DuVal said.
“My first time ever reading Shakespeare was in high school, and being very apprehensive about it. Like ‘oh my gosh, I don’t want to touch this’ but after reading it, you could start to eek out some sense … but actually preforming it is a very dense language,” Travis Gray, who plays Duke Orsino in the production, said.
Along with the challenge of Shakespearian language there is also the challenge of collaborating with multiple different groups within the theater department to put it into one show.
“Each of the designers: the costume designer, set designer, lighting designer, sound designer, make-up designer and the actors are all working in collaboration with the director” DuVal said.
The production of Twelfth Night is an adaptation taken from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival DuVal has been a part of for years, and he brings so much experience to the production, Nash said.
“We couldn’t be in better hands with (Chris). He knows this stuff inside and out, from his years of graduate study to his years at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Just learning and working and developing his own process and being able to bring it here it just makes us greater.”
Ryan Tarinelli can be reached at [email protected]