Q&A: In upcoming Stillwater show, director Amanda Espinoza reimagines Shakespeare on a ’60s tropical island
- Amanda Espinoza is directing a 1960s-themed version of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" at Stillwater's Zephyr Theatre, with showtimes from March 12 to 22.
This is Amanda Espinoza's second retelling of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" in as many years.
Last August, for Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, she directed a version of the play reimagined as a musical, with songs instead of soliloquies. And opening March 12, for Stillwater's Zephyr Theatre, she's reimagining the classic love-triangle comedy on a colorful 1960s-themed tropical island.
Thursday to Saturday showtimes are 7 p.m. March 12 to 14 and March 19 to 21 and 1:30 p.m. Sunday matinees March 15 and 22. (The March 22 performance will be captioned.) Tickets for seating, which is general admission, are available online for $35 for adults and $20 for kids under 10. Performances are at The Grand Banquet Hall; 301 S. 2nd St., Stillwater.
Espinoza, the theater arts training manager and acting coach at CTC, was invited to direct the show by Zephyr artistic director Reed Sigmund, who also serves as a member of CTC's main acting company. After some fairly public financial struggles a few years ago that resulted in the organization leaving its Main Street building, the Zephyr has bounced back as a roving theater under Sigmund and executive director Jim Weckwerth .
Recently, we caught up with Espinoza to chat about the upcoming play, reimagining Shakespeare and the enduring messages she finds in "Twelfth Night."
(This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.)
Q:Where did the inspiration come from to retell a Shakespeare story with this '60s tropical island theme?
A:When I was studying Shakespeare, it felt very out of my realm, like it wasn't something accessible to me. But the stories are, if you see them through a lens of understanding. We can find universal stories that people understand and connect with; you can understand the trials and joy these characters are going through.
In "Twelfth Night," you're on an island, you're secluded, you only have each other, and that's where the chaos ensues. I started to think about Gilligan's Island, the different roles they all took on. And in the '60s, women were able to not be as limited in what they were wearing, where they worked. It was an era of freedom for a lot of people. (In the play), the lead character, Viola, feels limited in who she is as a woman. She has to survive, and she can't do that on her own as a woman, so she disguises herself as a man — and later discovers she could do all these things she didn't think she could do without hiding. So how do I make it accessible, relatable, what are common themes I'm finding in it? And along with gender and empowerment, there's also something about having bright colors and a lot of grief on stage that interests me.
Q:Why do you think that juxtaposition is something that speaks to you and appeals to you?
A:So much of my Latin culture is celebration of life, the gift it is to be existing. That's celebrated through color. And so much of our world is shifted with color, too: What you wear to a wedding, what you wear to a funeral. We're all on this journey of joy and sadness, and how can we celebrate that we get to experience those things? I love being able to see people in grief wearing bright pink instead of just black, knowing that's part of who they are and how they (show) love; and that they can still be experiencing a lot of pain.
Q:This is obviously a broad question, but why is it worthwhile to try to reframe Shakespeare in accessible ways? Why are these stories still important to tell, even in different formats and so many years later?
A:Shakespeare has just been so vital in a lot of storytelling. We still see a lot of those mistaken identities, miscommunication, jokes gone bad, all these occurrences that happen in our own daily lives. What I love is that he makes even the mundane have power onstage.
We see things that keep occurring today — and how do we not learn from them? We see it in his history plays. We see shows about power. What happens if this one man has all the power? What happens if I tell this one lie; will it ruin someone's life? What does revenge look like? All of these things keep occurring, and it's like, how do we keep listening, keep telling these stories, so that the future audiences and individuals will keep learning from them?
Q:This show is for all ages, but I think it's interesting that your main role these days is at CTC. How do you think working predominantly with young people has shaped your approach to theater?
A:Children are very aware of the world and they're great listeners, which sometimes we forget to do as adults. And risk-taking, for them, is in the trying. It's not doing anything outside of boundaries; risk-taking for them is just, I'm willing to be vulnerable and try this. They're not fearing imagination and play.
That's so exciting to me because you can (apply) that to adults, too. What do we have to lose? We're playing, and we get a platform and the ability to tell stories. We're all storytellers, and we're just waiting for the right ear to listen. So what can we keep doing to play and have fun and find the joy in it?
