Children of all ages will be able to enjoy a free comedy performance Sunday at Warsaw's Central Park.
As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival's Young Company touring group will perform "The Deceived" at 7 p.m.
"The Deceived" is the Renaissance comedy that inspired Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." No one escapes deception as the best intentions turn lovers into servants, friends into foes, and a lovesick girl into a headstrong boy.
Via e-mail, a couple of performers answered questions about the show.
Kevin Fugaro is a senior theater major at Northwestern University in the Musical Theatre Certificate program. Later this summer, he will perform in "Twelfth Night" at Notre Dame, directed by David H. Bell.
"The show, set in 1905 Chekhovian Russian, will be a new and exciting re-imagining of the comedy, complete with a revolving stage. This fall I will be playing Jonathan in Frank Galati's production of 'Arsenic and Old Lace' at Northwestern," he wrote.
"The rehearsal process has been a very unique one," he wrote about 'The Deceived,' "in that actors have been allowed to have more freedom on stage than most rehearsal processes. Because of the Commedia style of the show, the actors have the liberty of improvising and interacting spontaneously with the audience. That sense of spontaneity has been a driving force in the process."
Fugaro said the "wonderful thing about the Commedia style of the show is that it uses archetypes like the greedy old miser and the overwrought young lover. In that way, the show is able to reach a wide variety of people and tap into a universal sense of comedy."
Young audiences will enjoy the great interactions the performers have with the crowd, he said. "The show encourages the audience to play along with actors, and even has the actors venture into the crowd at some points, which will be especially exciting for younger audiences."
Young audiences shouldn't have any problem with the language in the show. He said, "The language in the show is very clear and surprisingly down to earth. The translation that the show uses strives to make the show accessible and funny, and I think it does so successfully."
At the heart of "The Deceived," he said, "the show is about reconciliation. The twins, who are the two most relatable characters in the play, occupy the central roles in this reconciliation story, while the other absurd, Commedia-style characters swirl around them. This juxtaposition of the real with the absurd, the serious with the comic, and the sad with the hilariously funny is a complexity that is not always seen in commedia, which I think modern audiences will enjoy."
Another performer in "The Deceived" is Molly Key.
Key just graduated from Notre Dame with a bachelor's degree in theater and Greek and Roman civilizations.
"As soon as I'm done with NDSF, I'm going to go back home to Chicago, do a little theater, make a little money, and hopefully be out in LA as soon as I can to begin a career in film acting. Oh, and I play Pasquella in 'The Deceived,'" Key wrote.
"The rehearsal process has been a lot of fun," Key said. "Because the style of the show is a lot more over-the-top than the acting I'm used to, I feel like rehearsals are a time when I can just completely goof around and make everything completely over the top to figure out what works and what doesn't. We have been taking a class in Commedia Dell'Arte to help us prepare for our roles and it is a great learning experience because Commedia is not a type of acting every actor gets the experience of trying."
Key said "The Deceived" is a fun show that everyone can enjoy.
"One of the things we learned in Commedia is that you have to play for the audience, so although we're not asking the audience to stand up and dance, the audience is always engaged and a part of what is going on onstage."
Like her castmate, Key thinks young audiences will enjoy the show a lot.
"We've added some things like fart jokes, funny elderly men, and things like that so that even if an audience member doesn't completely understand the plot, they'll still be able to laugh at the characters," she wrote.
The Young Company is a direct outgrowth of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival's mission to provide exceptional and unparalleled educational opportunities in a theatrical setting to students from the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary's College and regional university partners.
Jay Paul Skelton, producing artistic director, said, "The Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival strives to provide entertaining and enriching productions for audiences of all ages. The Young Company's presentation of 'The Deceived' marks the beginning of the season for us, but with much more in store including our 10th anniversary gala and Mainstage production of 'Twelfth Night.'"We are excited to be including Warsaw in our traveling season this year because one of our sponsors, Lake City Bank, is based here," Skelton said. "Please check out shakespeare.nd.edu for all the other exciting news."
Call 574-631-3777 or visit online http://shakespeare.nd.edu to learn more about the Young Company and other exciting community programs brought to you by Shakespeare at Notre Dame.
