Audience falls ‘In Love with Shakespeare’

The Citrus College theatre arts department’s Shakespeare in production class kicked off the first day of May with their production of “In Love with Shakespeare.”

“In Love with Shakespeare” is a series of scenes directed by director of theatre arts Cherie Brown with a universal theme of love. But it’s not just romantic love—it’s all kinds of love.

Brown carefully selected scenes for each of her students to perform and perfectly balanced Shakespeare’s better-known tragedies with his humorous comedies, including “Romeo and Juliet,” “Othello,” “As You Like It,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Hamlet,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Macbeth,” “Twelfth Night” and more.

The Little Theatre was transformed into a multi-functional set, which did a good job of blending in with the various scenes. There was even a balcony for the famous “Romeo and Juliet” scene that we all know so well, where Juliet calls out “Oh Romeo, oh Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?”

The central theme of love was also symbolized through a red rose that almost all the scenes had incorporated by using it as a prop. A red rose is most commonly symbolic for love, passion, desire and respect, which were all illustrated throughout the scenes.

Since every student had to provide their own costumes, it was fun to see the eclectic styles of the performers and their modern take on Shakespearean dress. Citrus College student Amanda Villegas’ costume had a clown-like theme, complete with a goofy striped jacket, puffy skirt and a bird’s nest in her hair. It only added to her comical performance in her scene from “Twelfth Night.”

Villegas, who played the role of Festee the Jester, played off the others in her scene with quirky antics, like pickpocketing fellow scene partner, actor Sean Pariser, who played Orsino.

Tayler Larson incorporated a fun, flirty vibe as Titania from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” making her performance unique and memorable.

In the dramatic category, Tess Jones, who played Portia in “Julius Caesar,” was a standout and carried her scene with a grace that made her performance seem effortless.

Two other standouts from another Shakespeare tragedy were Kaveh Farzad and Desire Perez, who played Hamlet and Gertrude, respectively.  Not a person in the audience moved or made a noise during their entire performance. Farzad played Hamlet with such conviction, rage, pain and love, and where others might get lost in a scene with such a strong partner, Perez was notable on her own. As Gertrude, she threw her rage and pain right back at him, looking so terrified that one felt pity for her character, but then it was quickly remembered that she should not be pitied, because she married her dead husband’s brother, who was also his murderer.

The final scene was the perfect ending to a great show.

Donald Harris, Natalie Burge, Chelsea Brynd and Elijah Munoz had the best comical chemistry of the night with their performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” They had the audience laughing throughout their performance, as they used the entire stage, running up and down the stairs, into the audience and even at each other.

They must have channeled their inner Johnny Carson with their comedic timing, and their outer Buster Keaton or Jerry Lewis for their physical comedy. 

“In Love with Shakespeare” was a great opportunity to showcase both the department’s talented actors and Brown’s strong directing abilities.