Last weekend, Shakespeare in the Streets took to Old North St. Louis -- at the intersection of N. 14th and Montgomery streets, to be exact. For the past four years, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis has mounted an original work based on one of Shakespeare’s plays in one of the city’s neighborhoods, with contributions from the community’s residents for a weekend of free performances. This year Shakespeare in the Streets performed an adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy, “Twelfth Night” called "The World Begun" written by Nancy Bell, playwright-in-residence at Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.
After a rousing warm-up by the band, Renaissance Blues, Viola (Marlene René Coveyou) finds herself out of space and time -- a 16th century woman who winds up in 21st century St. Louis after being shipwrecked, mourning the twin brother she thinks is dead. The shipwreck was gracefully represented by dancers from Jennifer Medina’s Common Thread Contemporary Dance Company. Once she gets her bearings, a librarian named Mike (Patrick Blindauer) gets Viola up to speed on the neighborhood, and she ends up disguising herself as a man, “Cesario”, and takes a job at Headhunters, the local barber shop, and falls for one of the barbers, Orsino (Lawd Gabriel). But Orsino has his eye on Olivia, the podiatrist (Erin Renée Roberts), and sends Cesario to her to communicate his love, but Olivia ends up falling for Cesario -- the disguised Viola.
