This isn’t the Brady Bunch, but…

Here’s the story… of a lovely cast set… where everyone can let you take photos and go wow!

Really, quite seriously–for the first time ever–the SL Shakespeare Company will be unleashing our avatars, standing still, on a single sim for you to take photos of–as part of our Koinup Photo Contest, with over L$100,000 in prizes! If you’re new to avatar photography or would like to learn more about it, we’ll also have the legendary photographer Ryker Beck to kick off the event with a photography tutorial.

Here are my recommended settings for avatar photography. The photos shown above are unedited, with Windlight *off* and avatars wearing a face light.

Join us this Saturday, Apr 4 @ 1 PM SL Time at the Blackfriars Theatre in Shakespeare, Second Life.

The Super Spoof plays @ 5 PM on April 1. ONE DAY ONLY. We are going to multi-parody a whole bunch of things from 2008, and see if they flow with Twelfth Night–that is, this is our “Twelfth Night - Popular Culture Analogues” Edition.

Everything summarized by the playbill above. Please feel free to link. This is a strictly unofficial fan production; our SPOOF-esque version of Twelfth Night just for April Fools Day 2009 - join us at the SL Globe Theatre at 5 PM PST (GMT-8).

Please note that we do have a L$100,000 koinup photography contest going on in conjunction with our open-ended run of Twelfth Night. We also have a special contest category JUST FOR today’s show. In this mini-contest for this show, there’s over L$5000 worth of cash and prizes up for grabs for your winning photo. Drop by the show. Take pictures. AND WIN!

Draft 1 of MultiParody 2009 Playscript is here.

Although our main canon of Twelfth Night is set in the “generic past,” this particular production of “Actus Primus, Scoena Tertia (Act 1, Scene 3)” is set in the Elizabethan era… from costumes to theatre to skin. (Yup! Maria has stubble - she’s played by a guy!)

With this light offshoot from our main production, we introduce a new branch of the SL Shakespeare Company, the SL Shakespeare Repertory Players… in this first performance in the Blackfriars Theatre - bare stage, as the Elizabethans might have done it - and with a dog hidden behind a column on stage left o.O.

Here’s our brand new programme booklet for our Open-Ended Run of Twelfth Night, Act 1. You can also grab a copy inworld @ the SL Globe Theatre. Thanks to the programme sponsors!

OEP1: Twelfth Night, Act 1 - 2009 Open Ended Run (pdf 5 MB) or Issuu

Interview with Artistic Director Ina Centaur on Twelfth Night, Act 1—The Open-Ended Run
by Lora Constantine

What is your vision in directing the play?
“This production attempts to be as true and pure to the play as possible… This is the only one of the Bard’s plays that is not under suspicion from various bad quartos editions, so there might be some insights to be divined if we try to dramatize it based on a close reading—independent of the shackles of any era interpretation.”

What is your artistic vision for this production?
“The best metaphor to describe its visual appearance might be the phrase I conjured up for our Fall 2008 preview season: the play looks like it’s from the ‘generic past.’ This also avoids the politics and extraneous notions connected with modernity. In general, the seen elements aren’t bound to a particular era or interpretation—but serve to help embellish the intrinsic elements of the play.”

Could you elaborate on that?
“The characters basically look like their epithets, and the sets and props are designed to help flaunt and dramatize the intrinsic story and text, as well as the character relations.”

How do the sets help dramatize the play?
“For example, in scenes where class and persona differences play a thematic role, multiple levels are created in the scenic design: Orsino’s balcony is clearly set off-access from Viola, who beseeches him as a servant on the main stage level, emphasizing both their different status and outlook—Orsino’s flamboyance and Viola’s incognito-as-a-servant ‘obedience’. Similarly, the set for Scene 5 also contains different levels, but has stairs within view, allowing for Viola to easily climb up to Olivia, and the other way around—and, indeed, in stark contrast to the Orsino-Viola scenes, something intimate is passed between Viola and Olivia in that scene.”

And, costuming?
“Costuming was chosen to convey archetypes of each of the play’s main characters. Orsino looks like a duke, but there’s a certain reckless abandon in him—he looks like a guy in love with the concept of love itself. Olivia is of gray eyes with flaxen hair, but there’s a sadness in her expression—yet she can look like one who would entertain an old clown ‘for want of other idleness,’ or a sister and daughter in mourning—a certain quintessential valley-girl-ism. Viola for Act 1 is portrayed as clever, though innocently naïve—what other kind of character would choose to go incognito as a boy without expecting such complications?”

What brought you to work with character archetypes instead of a traditional era interpretation?
“A duke in love with the concept of love itself, a shipwrecked girl incognito as a boy eunuch, and the fair but young Lady Olivia in mourning—they contrast sharply with the irreverent man-adolescent Sir Toby Belch, the arrogant but sulking Malvolio, and the scolding but lascivious busybody Maria. In the middle of all this in Act 1, you also have Feste, the fool-uncertain-of-his-wit, and the witless Sir Andrew Aguecheek. While you can put them in era outfits, these characters are timeless, and it’s really their personality and role, as created by Shakespeare’s text (and which I’ve tried to summarize in epithet-esque above), that makes them who they are.”

How would you keep the fans who come to every single show excited for the entire open-ended run?
“Those fans typically know that our plays evolve through the course of even a typical run. But, starting in April, we plan to show ‘Variations’ of the play—such as an all-female production and switched-gender productions. Same words, but played by very different people. We’ll see what happens!”

How do you plan to keep the “Variations” together? Would the “Variations” be telling the same story?
“Twelfth Night, Act 1 is about the formation of love triangles… There’s a salient love triangle that evolves through the act, connecting Viola, Olivia and Orsino, and a subtle relationship triangle that forms between Maria, Andrew and Toby in Scene 3. That’s like the unmoving pivot that connects the ‘Variations.’ Our goal is to be able to vibrantly convey these archetypal relationships in both our main ‘traditional’ production as well as our ‘Variations.’”

Do you believe the archetypes would carry through with each “Variation?”
“Totally. I don’t think gender would change a character’s essential essence in the play—if you speak Stanislavsky, we’re talking about his or her super-objective, and I think that would not be transient with gender. Of cousre, you might wonder in a reverse-gender situation, why Violio would choose to go under-cover as a girl Cesaria—but I think it would be for similar reasons; Violio is effeminate, and would rather not want to get beat up in this new land of Illyria, similar to how Viola would choose to go incognito as Cesario to avoid being the more helpless gender… I believe, at least, it’s realistic to have a duchess or countess in love with the concept of love itself—and with Second Life’s high population of Aspie’s [those with Asperger’s Syndrome], I’m sure, for some, the meaning will carry through to heart!”

Would you be changing the characters’ appearances for your “Variations”?
“I think we’ll just switch the voices around for the switched-genders Variation. But, it might be interesting if the characters were explicitly their other gender, with Lord Oliver and Violio incognito as Cesarina. We will be replacing the male avatars with distinctly female avatars (and slightly re-cast) for the all-female production. We’ll have Duchess Orsinia and Lady Andrea Auguecheek and Malvolia! It’s not just an exploration of the play’s famous androgyny… It’s also be fun!”

How long do you think the open-ended run might last?
“I don’t know! We’ll see, I guess!”

Naergilien Wunderlich has created a “One of a Kind” dress that is a meticulous Second Life reconstruction of Queen Elizabeth I’s Rainbow Portrait dress. (See blog entry.)

This dress can be obtained through a silent auction that ends at 4 PM SL Time on Winter Solstice December 21, 2008.

The bid is currently at L$10,600. IM and notecard Naergilien Wunderlich directly with your bid.

Proceeds benefit the SL Shakespeare Company in their SOS “Save Our Sims” Campaign.

Closeup Image:

The press release is here.

The programme - fresh and hot off the press!

Get your own - Open publication

Act 1 introduces the main characters (as well as their quirky personalities) and sets the conflict to be resolved in the play; it has 5 scenes. (Due to lack of an external budget,) We aren’t committed to a perfectly-accurate era production this time, and thus the clothing and sets are of the “generic past”; no one’s dressed in modern clothing, per se, but this makes the visuals easier, as fewer new items need to be made (better for budget), and most items already exist and can be purchased. Here are my notes — my thoughts and interpretations for each. My character interpretations are here.

1. Begin with music and a memorable feast that literally embodies the food of love, playing on in an Illyrian palace with sunlight streaming through its windows, and a multimedia-projector-esque device projects moving images in the upper level corridors, to make the palace appear more staffed. Musicians play a song, as Curio eats a hart. Music stops dramatically and in deference to the Duke Orsino as he enters from his balcony entrance; and, as he waves his hand, it continues (symbolically: the man’s word galvanizes the concept of love). Orsino’s speech sounds “ample fickle”, and indeed, he does tell the musicians to stop feeding him this food of love, that he grows so sick of (he did command them to give him too much of it that he gets sick of it). Curio (in this interpretation) is his cousin from the countryside, who is apparently more obsessed with the feast of hart than in Orsino’s heart. When Orsino doesn’t give him a positive on the hunting question, he leaves with a “hmmph” thinking Orsino a fool (for turning himself into a hart!). Valentine enters, and reports on his progress with Olivia–that Olivia would hide herself from view for seven years to mourn her brother. Orsino doesn’t take this as a setback; he’s so obsessed with this concept of love of his fantasized version of Olivia, that he believes this part of her character that would pay the “debt of love / but to a brother” would make her a better lover. In this interpretation, his “dying fall” really occurs (though he doesn’t die - that would break the plot!), and he starts climbing the balcony at the end of his ending speech, and jumps into the “sweet beds of flowers” on “canopied with bowers.”
2. This is actually my favorite scene in this SL production — in fact, I was galvanized to produce this just due to the prospect of converting the Globe Theatre’s characteristic double pillars on-stage into palm trees, and covering the garage-roof-like proscenium arch of the Globe with a mess of storm clouds. The added effect of the rainstorm and lightning and sounds came later. I had imagined Viola and the Captain, at first, separated by a huge distance, each sitting beneath their own palm tree. Adding the storm made the exchange make more sense–they’re trying to wait it out, each beneath a palm tree after the storm ends (although, in movies, you recall shipwrecked people who make it to shore to wake up after the storm’s over), and the storm sound effects is another reason why they’re shouting. At the start, Viola is alone beneath her own palm tree, as is the Captain, who perhaps is used to the every-man-is-his-own-island. They shout through the storm, and when the Captain mentions that there might be hope for her brother yet, she takes a fondness to him and offers him gold just for saying it - she braves through the storm and crosses the gap between them. But, of course, she’s offering her gold as a beacon of trust, and proceeds to asking him for guidance in this new land. You can get a grasp of Viola’s young age by her naïvity, her quick decision to be concealed as a boy.
3. Toby and Maria open the scene, but enter from very different doors. Maria enters from the back porch door of Olivia’s house, which on this side, at least, is next to The Taurus Tavern. Toby stumbles out of the Tavern, and Maria starts scolding him about his late hours. Toby attempts to justify himself, as well as Andrew. In this production, Toby and Andrew are of about the same height, though Toby attempts to make Andrew seem taller (thinking himself as tall). Also, Toby is in appearance and behavior little older than a teenager (in part due to casting). Andrew enters after Toby; even though they both emerge drunkenly from the same tavern, he’s actually delayed a bit for having to pay for Toby’s revels. He’s drunk, so that doesn’t matter, and the big bottle of Castiliano Vulgo helps make this clear. The conversation that follows may require a feat of SL navigational luck. As Andrew enters, he verbally greets Toby, but stumbles towards Maria (recall that he’s drunk!), who takes a huge step back from her previous confrontational distance next to Toby. Toby greets him mockingly, Andrew turns to face Toby, though he’s next to Maria (he’s drunk and the sense of direction and who’s who is a bit a miss!). When Toby tells him to “accost,” he walks over to him, confused, “What’s that?” Toby objectifies Maria, “My niece’s chambermaid.” Andrew then faces Maria (he’s currently standing near Toby), and greets her as “Mistress Accost.” Maria states curtly, “My name is Mary, sir.” Andrew, who is still a bit out of it, greets her again as “Mary Accost,” and Toby immediately attempts to clarify himself, elaborating on what he meant by “accost.” Andrew, who is actually more drunk than we realize, bring up the other (sexual) meaning of “accost,” and mentions the ludicrous meaning of accost in that sense, “By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company!” Maria, who has had enough of this, and who had already made up her mind on Andrew’s lacking intelligence, leaves. Andrew, after being told by Toby that if he lets her parts so easily can’t really slap people off with gauntlets anymore, rushes over to her and beseeches her to stay. He then tries doing a hand-exchange thing, which is a small feat in SL interface navigation by itself. He tries taking Maria’s hand, and then Maria pushes the bottle on him, to beseech him to drink and let go of her hand-but he keeps on trying to take her hand. “Dry” and “barren” as she lets go of his hand for the last time and leaves. Andrew then sinks down to an emo sit on the porch steps, while Toby tries cheering him up. At first, Toby sort of looms over him, as the sot of greater intelligence. Andrew then says something totally offbeat, mentioning that he’s a great eater of meat and that does do harm to his wit; in response, Toby should sound like he’s rolling his eyes, “(uh huh) no question.” When Andrew threatens to leave, Toby then sits down next to him, and seriously attempts to cheer him up . Curly hair is more in-style than straight hair, the kind that Andrew has, and, true, as they muse about his hair-like-flax-on-a-distaff, Andrew does pull a clump of his own hair out to wonder about it. Cup of canary can be obtained if they were to caper off into the Tavern again, but ironically, there’s a canary in a cage next to them (symbolizing this trapped tendency to imbide in canary). The subsequent capering in galliards and carrantos cheer them up, and they do head off back to the tavern, to being born under Taurus!
4. Valentine and Cesario are/will both (be) sent as messengers of the Duke’s love, but Valentine is Cesario’s predecessor, and so it is significant when he defers his status to Cesario — they exchange this on a sort of raised stairway halfway between main stage level and the balcony. The Duke then enters from his balcony, and goes onto beseeching Cesario, a less “graver nuncio”, to be adamant in showing his love. But, although the words are intimate, the Duke and Cesario are separated by a distance, in this case, represented by stage levels–Cesario is at a level below, and the Duke is still standing up on his balcony.
5. Maria and Feste enter through the door on the main stage level, and Maria goes about her slurry of complaints in Act 1, chastising Feste for being gone for so long. As Feste hangs himself, Maria ends up beating him in the joke, but leaves hurriedly when Olivia enters. Feste climbs the stairs and bows in a mock flourish to Olivia. Olivia, who starts with the command to take Feste away, ends up allowing him to stay after just a few words between the two (foreshadowing her fleeting change from deep-in-mourning to piqued by a love interest when she meets Cesario). It does seem that Cesario’s arriving causes quite a stir in Olivia’s house, as every single member seems to come to Olivia to mention his(her) arrival. Now, for this SL production, there is a chance that the actor who plays Toby might not make it (he’d been missing several rehearsals, and may tend on a similar schedule as an actual Toby), so in that case, Toby’s role in this scene will be played by a silent actor who lurches in and falls as a totally drunken sot of a Toby. Feste’s exit then finely shoves him away, off through the door on the main stage level. When Olivia calls for her veil, Maria bustles up the stairs and gives it to Olivia, who becomes veiled. Cesario enters from the main stage door and is looking up at Olivia, until the part where she tells everyone to leave and takes off her veil. They are then on equal levels. In the end, Olivia descends the stairs to give her brief soliloquy.

That is more or less the plan! Except, we don’t have a dedicated animation team, and mostly have actors making their own, some using animation creation software for the first time. Not all animations may work as expected. Not much of a budget for costume, anyway. The sets are possible with your dear director working for free for a couple hundred of hours designing and building/assembling them.

Incidentally, all of the above sets were built *for* the Globe Theatre, especially its characteristic two columns, and back wall doors. The set elements cover the parts when not needed, fitting like a tailored hat! This is the empty/bare SL Globe Theatre Stage:

The Characterization of a SL production creates the image and visual character of the players. Since, there are basically no limitations in appearances in Second Life (lag allowing), it typically involves considering both the original character, as well as whom you have available. It’s also akin to playing God by breathing life into the avatar representation of a play’s character –or, at the very least, it’s making the PR images look pretty. Artistic Director’s notes on each character below:

• Cesario: “Shakespeare’s Mulan, except her battle is in finding her fate and identity in the land she becomes shipwrecked in.” ~age 14, in that awkward interface between boy and man, young enough to be a “squash before a peascod or a Codling almost an Apple, his mother’s milk scarce out of him”. Youthful and naive, such that she’d choose to serve Olivia just because of their common loss of a brother to Elysium, but chooses to serve the Duke–as an eunuch, not bothering to think much over the problems that course of action may lead to; of upper class parentage, and of wealth as evidenced in her attitude with money–prone to give it for good words, and prone to reject it out of honor. Though she’s Viola in disguise, she can still make it as a cute young boy. Yet, there’s sadness in her eyes, for like the Lady Olivia she is assigned to woo, she, too, mourns the loss of a brother. But, that doesn’t stop her from attempting to do the best of what she can at her job–she’s young, outgoing and optimistic, direct and yet very delicate: “very comptible, even to the least sinister usage.”
  • Interestingly, as the Duke’s messenger, she seems to echo the basic meaning of one of the Bard’s sonnets, especially in her inquiry to Lady Olivia that her seclusion-in-mourning is an undue cruelness to the world, which would be without her beauty, “Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive, if you will lead these graces to the grave, and leave the world no copy.”
• Feste: “The embodiment of comic relief, his words often dispense some very perceptive insights on characters.” He’s an old clown, and as wit dwindles with age, perhaps he’s less wanted by the haughty Olivia. But, though he invokes the fancy-sounding but essentially no-namer Quinapalus in trying to justify a point, he beseeches the Lady Olivia: “Cucullus non facit monachum,” or “Don’t judge a monk by his cloak,” and goes on to prove her wrong, by making fun of her mourning (were Olivia less valley-girl-ish, she might have taken this as a grave insult). Yet, it’s interesting how he so-easily shows Olivia’s fickleness; she’s angry, at him, and calls for people to take him away, but he soon changes her perspective (perhaps foreshadowing her change when Cesario comes in), “Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou
  speakst well of fools!”
  • Why was he gone for so long, and for how long? Seven years missing, like the Bard himself?
  • In S5, Feste takes out the drunk madman and leaves Act 1. Goes with Feste’s theory of draughts in explaining what a drunk man’s like:
    “Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man: / One draught above heat makes him a fool; / the second mads him; and a third drowns him.”
• Duke Orsino: “The man in power in love with the concept of love itself.” Duke of Illyria, but not fettered with political matters, he’s greatly trusting, such that he’ll bestow the fruit of love itself to music and this new young eunuch, which a native Captain of the land introduces to him. Love is a distraction he’s willing to binge on — for him to avoid a melancholy of uncertain origins, that causes him to realize in the midst of a great speech praising the sweetness of love that it’s all too fleeting. In age, he’s the opposite of Cesario–of a venerable age for dukedom, and perhaps that’s why he casts favor on Cesario over Valentine, “a nuncio of more grave aspect.”
  • Might the actor who played Olivia also have been the one who played Orsino? He never seems to speak directly and in person to Olivia. O…
• Olivia: “As her name implies olive, or Homer’s ‘liquid gold,’ she is the female embodiment of the alchemist’s gold–for Orsino, the perfect vision of love, whom he sends envoys to but never gets to know–but like liquid mercury in how she changes her affections.” Of noble birth and of a decent inheritance, shallow in her fleeting obsession with mourning her lost brother–or perhaps she merely brings up on the seven years of eye-offending brine to ward off Valentine and Orsino. Stereotypical upper class who’d listen to an old clown or an unknown embassy for want of something more interesting to do. Beautiful by most standards, and yet Cesario/Viola should stand out. Arrogant enough to disregard her own beauty into an inventory list. Appearance: Fair, blonde, gray-eyes. In mourning clothing (black - as this is not an era-specific production), even if her attitude changes from mourning to loving at the end of act 1. Mischievous, with the coin trick, but not as much as Maria in Act 2.
  • Her name is nearly an anagram of Viola, but sans i.
• Malvolio: Bitter and infinitely envious of others, arrogant, wishes to be the spotlight himself. Act 1 does not reveal that much of Malvolio’s character yet, but the way he responds to Feste the Fool in Scene 5 with Olivia shows an undue meanness, the words of which at such a moment may be enough for Feste to seriously hate him enough to pull the cruel prank on him in later scenes. (Feste is trying to convince Olivia to re-hire him, and this is the worst time for Malvolio’s deprecating words.) About him, there’s the quintessential insolence of a butler, who sometimes believes he’s the lord of the house.
• Toby: The Sot of Illyria! ~age 25, but appearing literally a teenager in both self and form (in this interpretation). He’s clever, and makes me laugh more than Feste (at least in Act 1). But, why does a man–a noble–resort to drinking and staying drunk all the time? It’s escapism of a liquid sort, to dull one’s consciousness into a constant stream of drunken euphoria, avoiding a deep and bitter melancholy. Money, perchance? Sir Toby inherits the title of a noble, and yet no money, such that he’s reduced to flattering (and using) the better-endowed Sir Andrew for need of his 3000 ducats a year. Would it be too strange for him to marry the venerable-aged Maria? “Nay, but what’s a drunken man like?”
• Maria: Just an old servant woman who complains a lot until we get to Act 2. But, you do see a bit of her cleverness manifest even in Act 1, in her response to Feste’s “two points,” “That if one breaks, the other will hold; or if both breaks, your gaskins will fall.” and also her potential cruelness, when she snickers condescendingly at the young bare-peascod Cesario, all alone beneath the the house right balcony in Olivia’s house. (It’s all latent in her coyote-hazel eyes.) Does she look like Gertrude from Hamlet — perhaps they’re blood, but she’s just a servants woman in Illyria for this show! (What’s that hting with Toby and Maria, though?)
• Andrew: “The Tall Tale of a Man, and yet not really…” - rich but vulnerable and comic relief by himself. Clueless but with fine-breeding from ample education, money and class. Loves revels and masques, sometimes both at once. Believes in dirty accost-ing. 3000 ducats a year, and he can be manipulated and brown-nosed by a certain Falstaffian sot. Tall (or at least as tall as Toby or his top hat). Hair fine and thin as if from a distaff, un-frizzled at all.
• Captain: Though he appears only in a single scene, his role in introducing Cesario as an eunuch to land Viola her job with the Duke Orsino is crucial in moving the story along. He connects this shipwrecked squash-before-a-peascode with a means to go about a way in Illyria. In that respect, this character should look distinctly familiar. Thus, his face is the splitting image of the Ghost in Hamlet (SL Shakespeare Company’s inaugural production), although his body is more towards the bulkier side, being a well-fed ship-captain and all.
• Valentine: “The original embassy of love to Olivia from Orsino. And yet this Valentine of sorts is a graver nuncio [than Viola-Cesario].” Moor by birth (director’s interpretation), but loyal to his Duke, and carries out his commands. Yet, though once young, he’s already a man by age, and, perhaps that gets the lesser of him, especially when a new young eunuch comes to replace him. But, he’s honorable and does give Cesario good advice. Dress - similar to Cesario’s, but perhaps in less vibrant colors.
• Curio: “The Duke’s Young Cousin” Other interpretations have taken Curio as a lord who takes Orsino’s words as less serious and lofty, and perhaps a bit in low jest — the hunt and the hart as double entendres. Due to casting, my interpretation is to just have him be either a young-ish cousin of the Duke’s, who’s staying there and enjoying the feast of a hart, and anxious that his uncle go out hunting to replenish the feast. His words are thus nothing but the literal. He’s a chubby little boy with a gruff-ish voice who just wants more hart! Hark, the boy wants hart, the food! The music can be there or not, he cares not for the heart!
• Viola: “Shipwrecked, lost, but determined to find her way.” Shipwrecked, her brother gone, lost in the strange land of Illyria. A quintessential sadness in her eyes, as well as face capable of conveying the ample spirit needed to find her way in this new land. Her facial bone shape should be easy to masquerade as a young boy, with or without the obvious length of hair. Ideally, dressed in a tattered purple dress–color of royalty or great wealth, but marred by a shipwreck, now mayhaps to suffer the fate of a commoner. (See Cesario)