Harold Goldstein
Shakespearian plays of old are twisted into a laughing frenzy in “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet),” a tasteful comedic play that mixes Shakespeare with Lewis Carroll.
Created by Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald, “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)” tells the tale of Constance Ledbelly (played by Jonica Patella), an assistant English professor whose obsession lies in the works of William Shakespeare-more specifically “Othello” and “Romeo and Juliet.”
While writing her thesis on how the two plays were actually comedies rather than tragedies, she receives the unsettling news of losing her job and possibly moving away from her home. In a fit of frustration, she tosses away all of her old belongings including the book that started the inspiration of her thesis.
Curiosity gets to her when she reads a mysterious passage written on the cover, which then teleports her to the plays she’s been researching all that time. Now stuck in a world she understands all too well, Constance must find the one who brought her there in the first place all the while putting her thesis to the ultimate test.
On opening night, the play was featured at the Dow Arena Theatre at Pierce College. While the audience was waiting inside, stereo speakers played classical music that was fitting to the times when Shakespeare was in his prime.
The play itself was funny as well as tasteful. With a feeling reminiscent of “Alice in Wonderland,” the overall performance had a well-planned mix of lengthy swordplay scenes with impressive choreography and small sensual scenes that were funny to watch but would also redden some checks.
One of the memorable scenes in the play was when Constance, after fulfilling one of her goals to get home in the world of Othello, gets transported to the world of Romeo and Juliet just when Romeo is about to see his best friend murdered by a member of the Capulet family.
The sheer randomness of Constance throwing herself onto Romeo to stop the battle was just plain fun to watch.
In order to get into the complex character of Constance, Patella had to read the old plays she had gone through before while back in her college years.
“I was a theatre major in college when I was getting my bachelor’s degree,” said Patella. “So, of course I have studied the plays before. (Now, I got to) see them through the eyes of this timid academic and get her perspective on what these plays really had to say.”
Not only for the actors, Valorie Grear, director of Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), had taken this play to be a fun but challenging experience.
“I read the play over a year ago and I’ve been in love with the play since I read it,” said Grear. “I find that it just has a lot of different levels. It’s a comedy on the surface but it has a lot of interesting elements to it. It’s also a big challenge for actors. They have to handle comedy, Shakespeare. There are a lot of different physical demands in the play.”
Overall, this is simply a fun romp of a play that is both delightful, mischievous, and can even answer the little question that is forever buried in the back of our minds, “What if?”
Overall Grade: A+