The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School performing arts department is curing Islanders’ winter doldrums with a dose of pure joy in Twelfth Night, which has two final performances this weekend: Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
A musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy, this high-spirited show mixes the original Elizabethan language with contemporary songs to tell a timeless story of mistaken identity, love at first sight and the life-changing power of a really good practical joke.
An on-stage orchestra of five students and four teachers, conducted by band leader Stephanie Aurenz, plays a lively score with touches of New Orleans jazz, blues and funk music.
Stage director Brooke Hardman Ditchfield, musical director Abigail Chandler and choreographer Ken Romero draw outstanding performances from throughout their well-prepared cast of more than 30 students, with powerful leads backed up by strong supporting actors and a sassy, confident ensemble.
Senior Gabi Silveira plays Viola, who literally washes ashore — still festooned with seaweed — in the fun-loving port of Illyria after a storm at sea has torn her from her identical-twin brother Sebastian’s arms. Thinking him dead, Viola dresses up like her brother and takes the name Cesario to get a job with Duke Orsino, who only hires men.
Played by senior Samuel Hines, Orsino is a tender but stubborn nobleman who captures Viola’s heart immediately, without seeing through her disguise.
Orsino’s own heart is set on wooing the countess Olivia, played with flair by Emma Burt. Olivia, for her part, has zero interest in Orsino but falls madly in love with the messenger he sends to press his case — Cesario/Viola.
Samuel Hines as Orsino and Gabi Silveira as Viola.
— Ray Ewing
While this mismatched love triangle is taking shape, various mischief-makers in Olivia’s household join forces in a series of chaotic pranks aimed at humiliating their enemies — especially the conceited butler Malvolio.
As played by junior Aiden Weiland, Malvolio is as self-satisfied as he is deluded, easily believing a forged letter in which Olivia promises him her hand. The scene in which Malvolio revels in his fortune, watched secretly by the conspirators from behind a rubber plant — housekeeper Maria (Alex Turner), servant Fabian (Jason Boudreau) and the dissipated parasites Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Jack Tully and Huck Moore) — is one of the funniest moments in an evening full of hilarity.
Mr. Weiland, an experienced song-and-dance man going back to his days at the Oak Bluffs School, where he portrayed Harold Hill in The Music Man — has a knack for physical comedy, drawing howls of laughter from Friday’s audience as Malvolio strutted and preened.
Meanwhile, Sebastian (Zyler Flanders) — remember Sebastian? Viola’s identical twin? — has been rescued by an affectionate pirate and is on his way to Illyria as well, just in time to thoroughly confuse everyone.
Tatum Thomas as Feste and Aiden Weiland as Malvolio.
Composer and lyricist Shaina Taub, a pop and Broadway artist who also created the musical of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, has a gift for telling the original story through contemporary song without losing the playwright’s meaning.
Stand-out numbers in this Twelfth Night include If Music Be the Food of Love, which brings the entire cast to the stage in a Mardi Gras-like celebration; If You Were My Beloved, an appealing feature for Ms. Silveira that blossoms into a pensive trio with Ms. Burt and Mr. Hines; and Ms. Burt’s sunny, soulful performance of I Am She.
As Feste, the fool in Olivia’s household, senior Tatum Thomas shines on both the irreverent crowd-pleaser You’re the Worst and the romantic ballad Is This Not Love, the theme song for Viola and Orsino’s growing bond.
The fast-moving show closes with Viola revealing her true identity, Orsino accepting her hand and Olivia happily settling for Sebastian, as everyone gathers for the rousing finale.
Emma Burt as Olivia and Zyler Flanders as Sebastian.
On stage and off, 50 students and 20 adults are involved in putting on the show, Ms. Hardman Ditchfield told the audience before Friday’s show.
“It’s the culmination of four months of work [and] it’s all student-run,” she said. “We’re letting them drive it, and it’s magic.”
Tickets for Twelfth Night are available at the door of the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center at the regional high school.
The performing arts department is also holding a lobby bake sale to help fund the school’s participation in the Massachusetts High School Drama Festival next month. The high school’s entry in the festival is a one-act ghost story called The Red House Monster, which Island students will perform in Bourne March 2.
