Twelfth Night

Welcome to the Roaring Twenties, a time of significant social, religious, and political conflict, juxtaposed with the exuberant and raucous jazz culture that defined the era.  It is within this topsy-turvy time our story comes to life. Welcome to Illyria, the most copacetic and ace jazz club of the Jersey shore. Animosity and bad blood abounds between the varying social types of the community; teetotalers, feminists, fundamentalists, immigrants, gangsters, and of course, jazz musicians and vaudevillian performers.

After a club raid gone bad, Viola, finds herself separated from her presumed dead brother Sebastian, with whom she performed in a traveling vaudeville Magic Act.  Alone in a strange and oft-threatening world, she disguises herself as a man and gains employment under local business mogul, Duke Orsino. It is through this turn of events we meet Olivia, the star attraction of Club Illyria and object of Orsino’s affection, Feste, an Eddie Cantor-esque master of ceremonies, Sir Toby, for whom prohibition clearly doesn’t exist, Malvolio, the fundamentalist servant to Olivia, and a wide variety of musicians, wait staff, gamblers, club-goers, and so on.  Love triangles, deceptions, misunderstandings arise- ending in both humor and heartbreak- against the bewitching backdrop of the insatiable flapper era.

Performance in the FIRTH J CHEW STUDIO THEATRE

Rating: PG