Fairy Tales with a Shakespearean Twist
As part of the Seattle Outdoor Theatre Festival this past weekend, Mt. Vernon’s Shakespeare Northwest presented an original script, Happily Ever After, three different plays, each combined beloved fairy tales and Shakespeare’s plays, written and directed by Carolyn Travis, but they were just a tad eccentric.
The combinations were the Hans Christiansen Andersen’s The Snow Queen and The Winter’s Tale, Beauty and the Beast and A Merchant of Venice, Rapunzel and Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The strength of this production was in the direction and the performances. The director chose to add some very hilarious funny touches involving the actors breaking character, the stage manager intruding on the scenes and other very amusing antics.
The weakness was the script itself, it was confusing. In my opinion, the author has some great talent and would do well to just write some “fractured fairy tales” of her own using the same style with the same great cast. The simple zany costuming and props made for a very enjoyable evening.
N.B. Shakespeare Northwest will be performing Taming of the Shrew and The Tempest July 14th to August 12th at the Roxville Blackrock Amphitheatre in Mt. Vernon. T
Tickets: shakesnw.org/tickets