Twelfth Night

I think I’ve seen this one two or three times, all live productions. The one that sticks most in my memory is an outdoor production I worked on as the follow-spot operator. It was set on a Greek island in the 1960s and featured a bunch of hippies running around variously tempting, scandalizing, and bewildering the older generation, none of whom are content to go gentle into that good night. Being long-haired and bearded at the time, I was promptly conscripted to appear as an extra in the opening scene, then run around the outskirts of the 1500-seat amphitheatre and sprint up to the lighting booth for my first follow-spot cue just over a minute later. It was great fun, not least of all, because for just a few seconds every night it was pretty easy to convince myself that I really was on a Greek island in the 1960s. Overall, it was also a delightful production, besides which, the weather was nice and it didn’t rain much. In this play, Shakespeare seems to suffer a crisis of choice, unable to decide whether to have identical twins or a girl who disguises herself as a boy – so he does both. I decided to be just as subtle, doctoring a playing card with a Jack on the top half, but whose bottom – and presumably better half – is a Queen.