{"id":26580,"date":"2025-03-05T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=26580"},"modified":"2025-02-28T10:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T18:04:07","slug":"shakespeares-twelfth-night-insightful-commentary-on-modern-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2025\/03\/05\/shakespeares-twelfth-night-insightful-commentary-on-modern-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare\u2019s Twelfth Night<\/em> insightful commentary on modern issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shakespeare\u2019s 21st play is a romantic comedy that, while produced in 1600, seems quite relevant to a contemporary audience, dealing with social issues like gender norms and other pressing problems like climate change and related ecological disasters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Directed by Fran Gebhard and presented through UVic\u2019s Phoenix Theatre, Twelfth Night<\/i> is set in what may be our near future, after a series of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and wildfires. The play is originally set in Illyria, which is a southeastern region in the Balkan Peninsula of Europe, but Gebhard has set this iteration on coastal Vancouver Island, near Tofino.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gebhard\u2019s intent is partly to showcase some pressing ecological concerns, but it\u2019s also to show the importance of relationships, particularly during difficult times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe main theme of the play is love, and if I put that against the backdrop of these natural disasters, my message would be, in this day and age, when we have so much going on in the world, when we have wars and a very uncertain political situation here in North America, what you need is love,\u201d says Gebhard. \u201cYou need relationships, you need friends, you need family, you need to rely on one another. You need love to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Twelfth Night<\/em>, running at UVic\u2019s Phoenix Theatre this month, showcases the importance of relationships in tough times (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twelfth Night<\/i> was chosen democratically by students, but also partly because of the makeup of the third- and fourth-year acting company: this year there were many women in the department, and this aligned with Shakespeare\u2019s own interests in gender fluidity, since several women are playing the roles of men.<\/p>\n

\u201cShakespeare was very interested in gender-bending, and because he had a company of male actors, men often played women,\u201d says Gebhard. \u201cI think it was interesting for him to have men playing women playing men.\u201d<\/p>\n

An ardent fan of Shakespeare, Gebhard has retained the original text and dialogue rather than changing the language to adhere to modern language standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cShakespeare\u2019s language is absolutely beautiful,\u201d she says. \u201cI tell the students you don\u2019t have to manufacture emotion because you will get the emotions from the beautiful text that Shakespeare, a genius playwright, has written.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gebhard has been involved with the theatre world since she was about six years old, when she would frequently attend theatre with her parents. As an acting student, she got the opportunity to direct her first play, which, despite being several decades ago, was also Twelfth Night<\/i>. Eventually she took on the mantle of instructor, which is where everything really fell into place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really, really enjoy it; I absolutely love the students, and I love my job, and that is that is 100 percent true,\u201d says Gebhard. \u201cThe students keep you young. I love sharing my passion with the students, they\u2019re very enthusiastic about classes, about learning how to act. I teach acting for the stage and for film and television, and I get up every day and I really can\u2019t wait to get to the theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n

One treat for audiences is that Gebhard has included live modern music, as well as other cultural references familiar to modern viewers, and she believes it will be a good night out on the town.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that I have added to the show that is not of Shakespeare\u2019s invention is modern music,\u201d she says. \u201cI have a live guitarist, and she will be playing riffs by Bruce Cockburn and various other people. There\u2019s lots of cultural references in the piece, so I think it should be fun for the audience, as it\u2019s a comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twelfth Night
\n<\/i>Various times, Thursday, March 13 to Saturday, March 22
\nVarious prices, Phoenix Theatre, UVic
\nphoenixtheatres.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shakespeare\u2019s 21st play is a romantic comedy that, while produced in 1600, seems quite relevant to a contemporary audience, dealing with social issues like gender norms and other pressing problems like climate change and related ecological disasters.\u00a0 Directed by Fran Gebhard and presented through UVic\u2019s Phoenix Theatre, Twelfth Night is set in what may be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,328],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-march-5-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26582,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26580\/revisions\/26582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}