‘Twelfth Night’ taps into celeb culture, immigration for outdoor show in Forest Park

Apr 18, 2023

For its 2023 production in Forest Park, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival presents "Twelfth Night," one of the Bard's most popular and enduring comedies. If you're unfamiliar with the story — which involves involves a shipwreck, mistaken identities and romantic entanglements — here's a guid…

"Twelfth Night," one of Shakespeare's most popular and enduring comedies, involves a shipwreck, mistaken identities and romantic entanglements. And in the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival production in Forest Park, Chicago-based director Lisa Portes has found a tale of immigrants.

"I’m the daughter of a Cuban exile," Portes says. "And I have a lot of family in Miami. My father came over, alone, with a suitcase and a violin in 1959, when he was 15 years old.

"This production is set in (the fictional) Illyria," she says, "but it's influenced by Miami. I’ve wanted to do ‘Twelfth Night’ for so long, and I’ve wanted to do this production of ‘Twelfth Night’ for so long, because I’ve always seen it as a refugee story — as an exile story."

For its 2023 summertime production in Forest Park, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival presents "Twelfth Night," set in modern-day Miami. Producing artistic director Tom Ridgely says it's a perfect fit for the story about twins who were shipwrecked and find their way together. Video by Calvin Wilson

Indeed, Portes says, the play revolves around twin siblings Viola (Gabriela Saker) and Sebastian (Avi Roque) "trying to find their way in a new country. And a kind of crazy new country, actually."

Tom Ridgely, producing artistic director of the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, says that Portes is bringing "a real freshness" to the classic play.

"The spirit of the show is just so joyful, and so lively, and so heartfelt that it's got us all very excited," Ridgely says. "She's responding to the text of the play and finding in it things that resonate with us today. There are moments that she's staging that all of a sudden, for me, are making sense in ways they never really have before."

At the time Shakespeare wrote "Twelfth Night," which dates to around 1601, he was "peaking as an artist," he says. "It's probably his most perfect comedy."

St. Louis Shakespeare Festival last presented "Twelfth Night" in 2013.

Saker, who plays Viola, says the character is one of her favorites in the entire Shakespearean canon.

"There is so much dignity and resilience in her," Saker says. "Also, I love that I get to experience multiple sides of her humanity." It's another high-profile role for the Cuban-born Juilliard graduate, who has also portrayed Nina in "The Seagull," Harper Pitt in "Angels in America" and Abigail Williams in "The Crucible."

From left: Esteban Andres Cruz, Alisha Espinosa, Ricki Franklin and Cassidy Flynn in a rehearsal May 26, 2023, for the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival production of "Twelfth Night"

"I fall in love with my characters, no matter who it is," she says.

"Twelfth Night" is Portes’ first time directing a professional production of a Shakespeare play. Among the challenges faced in approaching this particular work is "the complexity of the number of plots."

"In a contemporary play, you generally have one plot," Portes says. But in "Twelfth Night," Shakespeare has "at least three. So it requires some muscle and some rigor on the part of the director, because you’ve got to kind of wrangle the thing."

From left: Ryan Garbayo, Cassidy Flynn, Ricki Franklin and Adam Flores in a rehearsal May 26, 2023, for the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival production of "Twelfth Night"

In conceptualizing the production, which prominently features music, Portes tapped into the American fascination with celebrity culture.

"I knew that Orsino and Olivia would be celebrities and that everybody who worked for them would be either first- or second-generation immigrants from Latin America," she says. Felipe Carrasco plays Duke Orsino, and Jasmine Cheri Rush is Countess Olivia.

"In the United States, what is a duke, and what is a lady? We don't know — we’re not British," Portes says. "And because we’re not British, royalty doesn't read as well to us. So I was looking for a translation. Celebrities in this country have power and position, so we decided to go in that direction with those two characters.

"Which means that Olivia is a kind of Beyoncé-esque pop star. And then you have all these hangers-on in Olivia's house, so it made a lot of sense to me."

Similarly, the characterization of Duke Orsino is influenced by soccer stars.

From left: Ricki Franklin, Alisha Espinosa and Cassidy Flynn in a rehearsal May 26, 2023, for the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival production of "Twelfth Night"

Considering that the production takes inspiration from Miami, which is in Florida, does the production take advantage of the opportunity to make topical references? Particularly to recent political maneuvers in that state?

"Not explicitly," Ridgely says. "Because Shakespeare's obviously not talking about (Gov. Ron) DeSantis." But one of the characters in "Twelfth Night" is the ill-tempered, no-fun Malvolio (Ryan Garbayo).

"Malvolio is a very controlling, doctrinaire, conservative presence in the play," Ridgely says. "So you might detect some resonances with what's happening politically in Florida. But he's Olivia's steward, not the governor. There are no direct analogues with contemporary political figures."

Still, the casting of the play was definitely in keeping with its setting, Portes says.

"Miami is about 75% Latinx," she says. "It's also Haitian. It's basically a Latin American country in the United States. So I wanted to create a cast that reflected the diversity of Miami, which is a predominantly Black and brown city."

And as with any Shakespeare play, it was also important that the actors have "great facility with the language, comedy in their bones and big hearts."

One of the more prominent obstacles to understanding Shakespeare "is just the language," Ridgely says. "It's heightened, and it's old, and we’re not used to listening that way. But it's meant to be spoken, and if actors are speaking it as it's written, then it's actually very easy to follow."

Ryan Garbayo in a rehearsal May 26, 2023, for the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival production of "Twelfth Night"

"Really," he says, "it's about being able to use the language in the way that Shakespeare imagined his characters to be using it. And that's what takes a little extra technique."

In the grand tradition of Shakespeare in the park, "Twelfth Night" aspires to connect with theatergoers who may be a bit intimidated by the works of the Bard but are willing to lend him their ears.

"Theater, at its best, expands people's souls," Portes says. "It expands our understanding of one another and our understanding of one another's experiences. I hope that the play opens our hearts through laughter and music."

What "Twelfth Night" • When 8 p.m. nightly Tuesday-Sunday, June 2-25 • Where Shakespeare Glen in Forest Park • How much Free; $20-$25 for reserved general seating, $75-$100 for reserved blanket section for six, $120-$300 for reserved seating boxes for six • More info stlshakes.org

Your go-to guide to the best entertainment options in the St. Louis area and beyond.

Calvin Wilson is theater critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

For its 2023 production in Forest Park, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival presents "Twelfth Night," one of the Bard's most popular and enduri…

Here are a few of our staff picks for things to do June 2-8.