twelfth night

Ten years since Outdoor Theatre Downtown Toronto has celebrated Shakespeare on Philosopher’s Stage at Philosopher’s Walk on the campus of University of Toronto. This year, they’ve presented Twelfth Night, directed by Jeremy Hutton, a young prolific artist with the Hart House Theatre who has already staged Romeo and Juliet in 2009 and As You Like it in 2008.

It’s the fourth time I’ve been in the audience for the outdoor shows and it’s joy. Each year, I am thrilled to feel the passion of the performers, their youth and commitment heart and soul to an engaging project. Some actors are university students, some have more experience but they all seem to share a sense of community, work and friendship. Shakespeare is alive in their voices, in gestures and acts, in laughter and screaming of the day at dusk. Under the spell of the XVI^th century revived, the audience is all eyes and ears and only at certain times, a burst of laughs makes echo in the quiet park as if to say that we are there, present to welcome the spirit of the show that comes from far away. For almost two hours, we are all carried away, away from worries of the day, and I am happy to acknowledge this time again how Shakespeare is contemporary in his approach of love, of human longing and despair, of madness and foolish games. No need to say: classic plays are current. Old Shakespeare is never old; he never gets gray by the running times; on the contrary, his wit appeals to our modern epoch where social hierarchy, masters and servants, treats and tricks, affection and hatred compete… run races for the theatrum mundi.

Philosopher's Stage 

At some other level, I believe, the feeling of identification, the joy of guessing this or that, as well as the make belief that the public is part of the performance, also contribute to the success of the play. That is to say that the text and the acting hold hands to built up tensions, to knot and unknot secrets, to get the providence involved, and bands of fools and drunkards and servants, all pieces together keep the attention high and give the impression that we the public are in and out, present and in disguise in such a world that – the length of the performance – becomes a bit ours: we are mysteriously actors and watchers. Besides, the play happening outside, in the open air, people sitting on the grass, increases the feeling of being close, some sort of coziness and intimacy with nature’s heart, likely to be that of Shakespeare’s time. Boundaries melt away while life and fiction, night and day, past and present meet to stay like that… for a while.

I believe that my good spirits at the end of the show were partly being aware that performances do have meaning and are meaningful in our busy lives, especially when it comes to realizing that arts and culture are an intrinsic and invisible part of our souls and can contribute to the creativity of daily existence. While surely a lovely night, The Twelve Night appears to have reminded me that there are many lives in one and as many possibilities. Between playing and being serious, between entertainment and school, the game of life leaves plenty of space to discovering new things. And the taste of discovering old new things is even sweeter…

Who would then miss the 2011 Shakespeare Outdoor? Not me.