Riverside Theatre looks to make Shakespeare accessible with production of ‘Twelfth Night’

IOWA CITY — Riverside Theatre’s upcoming production of Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night” aims to show that Shakespeare is fun.

Presented on the Festival Stage in Lower City Park, this year marks 23 summers of the Riverside Shakespeare Festival. The outdoor setting and now-free admission provide an opportunity for professional actors to highlight Shakespeare in its best form.

The show runs June 16 to July 2. Outside the amphitheater, food vendors and yard games will be available for patrons to enjoy. According to Adam Knight, Riverside Theatre’s artistic director, the festival provides an opportunity to bring the community together.

“It's just a real festival atmosphere in this beautiful park in downtown Iowa City,” Knight said. “I think it's a really unique experience and it certainly is a real highlight for all of us.”

A story about human connection

“Twelfth Night” focuses on people and their relationships. Knight said the plot follows a “true love triangle” full of twists, surprises and character growth.

He noted that at the heart of this play, the characters and their relationships form broad themes to be interpreted. He described the piece as a “pandemic play,” not only because Shakespeare wrote during the plague years, but because the play also reflects a deep need for human connection.

“It's a play about people kind of in a bubble,” Knight said. “And every time they talk about love, there's always the shadow of loss. The play is ultimately a very positive play, but it's a positive play that acknowledges loss and death in a very profound way.”

Olivia Foster, who plays Viola — a character involved in the central love triangle — said “Twelfth Night” is a lighter story, especially when compared to some of Shakespeare's other works.

“Most of Shakespeare's plays are a little dark and even ‘Twelfth Night’ has a little bit of darkness to it, but it's the play that has the most fun,” Foster said.

The outdoor setting

Unlike most of Riverside’s other productions which take place inside its facility along the Iowa City Pedestrian Mall, the Shakespeare Festival notably takes place outside.

Knight said Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed outside, with certain cues to the setting sun and the cardinal directions embedded into the dialogue and stage directions.

The stage lights — or lack thereof — also makes a great deal of difference, according to Knight.

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“In an indoor stage, there's this inherent separation between actor and performer,” he said. “That relationship (outside) is more — it's more one of equals.”

While this is Foster’s first time performing at the Riverside Shakespeare Festival, she said the rehearsals and practices in the outdoor theater are distinctly different compared with performing inside.

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“There's something really special about being outside,” Foster said. “It's really amazing to be in a space where you are in between earth and air, and you are the magician who's creating this.”

While the outdoor space does have its ways of heightening a performance, it also has drawbacks. Saffron Henke, who plays wealthy heiress Olivia and serves as the show’s voice and text coach, said performing outdoors offers the audience a certain element of distraction.

Henke explained that when performing in a controlled environment, an actor doesn’t have to fight for the audience’s attention in the same way you would in an outdoor setting. With weather, noise, bugs and myriad other factors, Henke said success hinges on a performer’s ability to “think on your feet.”

“In addition to Shakespeare's language being inherently kind of tricky and heightened, then doing it outside requires, even beyond that, additional ability to support size and the expansion of the role,” Henke said.

Making theater accessible

Another unique quirk of Riverside’s Shakespeare Festival is the free admission. The event is not ticketed, so audience members can just show up to the performance of their choice.

While the show has not always been free, Knight said this change has alleviated past issues and makes theater as a whole more accessible to the public. He noted that because of the free admission, more children are able to attend the shows, since accompanying adults have little to lose if a child gets bored or wants to leave early.

“The thing I'm most proud about with this new structure is that it just alleviates that child care cost and the cost of bringing kids to a show,” Knight said.

He added that through audience surveys, a large percent of respondents say this is their first exposure to Shakespeare. While the Bard’s plays do have an element of darkness, Knight said there is a great deal of enjoyment that everyone can derive from his works.

“Shakespeare, for a lot of people, is imbued with fear. It seems like something that feels old-fashioned. It doesn't seem accessible,” Knight said. “This festival, I think, turns that on its head and presents Shakespeare in an incredibly human, accessible way.”

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly reported the number of years Riverside Theatre has been hosting the Shakespeare Festival. This year marks 23 years of the festival’s production.