Bishop: If Christmas is in July . . . Then 12th Night is in August
Thursday, August 03, 2017
In western civilization’s never failing devotion to dead white men, Shakespeare returns to Wilcox Park in Westerly. But lest one think this hazards placing stifling tradition above latter day pilgrim’s progress, this year’s production is one of the bard’s transgendered romps, Twelfth Night.
Indeed, Gwneyth Paltrow’s echo of the Shakespearean Viola ain’t got nothin’ on Katrina Michael’s real thing in Westerly this and next week – similarly most alluring in her boyish get up as Caesario. Of course, the play written for the revels afoot at the new year reveals that Shakespeare was as wont to send up the mores of his time as to embrace them . . . and, truth to be told, they are the same mores we debate in our own time.
Some bemoan that we are doomed to such ‘superstitions’, as believing that men are men and women are women, and that the design of nature has placed them in abundant, if oft more argumentative than Aphroditic, juxtapose (see., e.g., the Taming of the Shrew, the early evidence for dead white misogyny). But, if we have no tradition, there is nought to be trifled with.
Some are convinced that cross-dressed characters are a hint that Shakespeare was gay -- that the bard had a beard, so to speak. Other’s think his veiled criticism of the English church bespoke a concealed Catholicism. One wonders why it is we seek the hidden, when the obvious is that he was imbued with a wit not since matched.
As Nigeria busies itself with mass arrests for gay affection, our punishments are limited to the bard toying with our manhood. And the delicious irony of, at first, unrequited love that hovers about the true love triangle of Twelfth Night is conveyed in this production with such vivid expressions and mannerisms, believable and sincere as they are slapstick and exaggerated, that the story was clear to German speaking friends with modest capacity for English who joined our annual repose in Wilcox Park.
And in this locale you are treated not only to the dead white Shakespeare but the work of dead white Olmstead as well who created what is surely Westerly’s central park as he did New York’s. And the entire affair was endowed by the dead white Wilcox whose boiler innovations with the dead white Babcock paved the way for industrial steam production and electric generation. Wilcox Park is a legacy of their partnership. As reported Wednesday by the Hummel Report, it is the 125th anniversary of this gem, privately endowed for the benefit of the public culture
This Yankee culture could readily have been displaced by the olive skinned Italians flocking to Rhode Island’s granite city, but it has become revered rather than reviled. And Olmstead himself, whose family tree goes back to the earliest English settlement of Hartford in the 1600s is less well known for having made the economic argument for the futility of slavery. Of course it is hardly the politically correct thing to have said of slavery that its problems were that it made white economic culture lazy and inefficient. As it turns out though, Olmstead’s frank critiques of the slave economy had a poignancy and influence for some that “was more powerful and convincing than ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’”
But few can turn a midsummer night to dream like the bard and these latter day King’s Men who occupy Wilcox Park for three weeks each summer. A happy confab of local talent and temporarily imported stock such as Michaels who plays the hero . . . eer heroine of the comedy, they reveal that Westerly talent stock is not limited to guitar players (which the city produces at a per capita rate that likely exceeds any other jurisdiction).
This year’s run of Shakespeare’s revels inspired romp began on July 25, Christmas in July perhaps, and runs Tuesday through Sunday at 8 PM ‘til Aug. 13th. You bring a blanket and lawn chairs (short ones and get there early if you want to sit up front to best see the fabulous expressions that telegraph both the wit and sensitivity of Shakespeare and this cast of interpreters) and a bit of wine and cheese to tide you through a late supper.
Regardless of what you think of dead white men, or live ones, this is an experience not to be missed. The company has done itself proud once more and never ceases in its talent to make Shakespeare accessible, not simply because the performances are free -- with the only penance being to listen to an earnest appeal to pay what you can (the tip jar is back) -- but because the approach is neither pedestrian nor patronizing. It reminds in its earnest regard for its everyman audience that, in Elizabeth’s time, the commoners saw at public theater what the queen saw at court. It is dramatic license to have placed Dame Judi Dench’s Elizabeth of the modern telling of Shakespeare in Love at a public theater, but the point is well made that she shared Shakespeare with her subjects as we might share Red Sox highlights, without regard for class.
An equally proud and insular culture built in Westerly remains both beguiling and inviting if largely a mystery to the rump of the state that considers the town too far to bother to with. So this city in waiting has produced its own independent social and cultural milieu. A company of players is but scratching the surface where one will find a civic chorale with revels to rival Shakespeare, and a brass band that will open the open air performance of Twelfth Night on about its twelfth night, next Wednesday, August 9th.
Speziale is a testament to Westerly’s central place in presenting contemporary music that stems from American traditional forms – ergo, “Americana”. And he is surrounded by friends who offer further evidence of the magical mystery tour that is also Westerly (as if favorite son Duke Robillard’s appearance at the town beach in Misquamicut earlier that evening were not enough).
Westerly is in genuine competition for the role of the cultural heart of the state 12 months out of the year, but it is impossible to avoid how it shines in the summer. In all likelihood, sometime resident Taylor Swift will send her regrets, but you shouldn’t miss the Shakespeare or the city. We, like the legislature, are glad to allow politics to be out of session and fun in season for Rhode Island’s all too brief summer.
Brian Bishop is on the board of OSTPA and has spent 20 years of activism protecting property rights, fighting over regulation and perverse incentives in tax policy.
Related Slideshow: Winners and Losers in Raimondo’s FY18 Budget Proposal
Related Articles
- Bishop: Revolutionary Providence Primaries
- Bishop: It Takes [The] Village [People]
- Gencarella & Bishop: Political Football v Public Safety
- Bishop: Trump for President
- Bishop: Sleepy South County or Races That Matter?
- Bishop: Life in the Slowlane
- Bishop: Tax [Breaks] and Spending
- Bishop: 6/10 Connector - The $800 Million Mile
- Gencarella & Bishop: Billion Dollar ‘Big Dig’ - Fewer Bridges, Fewer Cars, Nearly Double The Cost
- Bishop: Structural Changes to Address Structural Deficit
- Bishop: Welcome Joe Biden, to Roads That Don’t Work
- Bishop: Have an Alt-Thanksgiving
- Bishop: Not Much Difference Between Mainstream Media & Fake News
- Bishop: The Devil is in The Details - PawSox Park isn’t 38 Studios, But Just as Bad
- Bishop: Water Water Everywhere Nor Any Drop in Rates
- Bishop: Trump’s Leading in Right Direction on Climate, & Leading From the Front!
- Bishop: Discourse on Discourse – Separating Word & Actions
- Bishop: Keeping it Weird
- Bishop: Met Café to Knickerbocker Café - Prov’s Retro Scene Isn’t in Prov Anymore, & That’s Politics
- Bishop: Immigration, is it Really black and White?
- Bishop: Our Love Hate Relationship With Amtrak
- Bishop: Localism vs. Infrastructure
- Bishop: Corporatism for me But Not for Thee - Competing Proposals for 195 land?
- Bishop: Government as a Business? After all, the Free Stuff From Government Isn’t a Loss Leader!
- Bishop: Red Tape for Rednecks . . . Who Knew
