Premiere | William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, or What You Will

PREMIERE

Dubrovnik Summer Festival and Zagreb Youth Theatre

William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Subtitled in English  

Director: Grzegorz Jarzyna

Twelfth Night staged by Grzegorz Jarzyna is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous comedies read from the perspective of gender roles and identities of non-binary persons. In Jarzyna’s interpretation, the Renaissance comedy becomes a modernist piece about fluid sexual identities fighting for their right to exist in an old, patriarchal world. In order to survive, the protagonists engage in a risky game based on power and desire.

As Olivia, one of the protagonists, says, love is like a plague that strikes people unexpectedly, making them vulnerable. It cannot be satisfied nor requited. Between the lines of poetic love confessions lies a drama of those who are searching for a language to express their hidden self. Twelfth Night speaks about gender roles and their effect on human relationships. What is sexuality? Does a person’s sex define love and desire? To what extent are we capable of stepping out of the social roles that culture has formed in us?