A planned performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by Warwick Academy’s Year 11 had to be postponed last month because of the impact of Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Gonzalo.

The play was part of the Bermuda Shakespeare Schools Festival. When the performance could not go ahead it was such a disappointment — it looked like several months of work may have been wasted. But Warwick Academy, after tirelessly preparing, decided to stage a “show must go on” performance at Warwick Academy’s Phoebe Purvis Memorial Hall on November 6.

The performance featured Brian Wedlich playing Malvolio, India Wilson as Orsino, Zachary Myers as Sebastian, Hannah Marshall playing the dual parts of Viola and Cesario, and Zach Dyer as Antonio. Together they and the rest of the cast, with help from Ms Taylor directing and Mrs Hind arranging costumes, performed a delightfully comedic performance.

Although the play was first performed in 1602, the setting was cleverly transformed to take place in modern-day Bermuda.

The students performing all agreed that Shakespeare’s plays are timeless stories which can be applied to modern day life.

Brian Wedlich commented that Shakespeare’s works send specific messages, and suggested that they are often of interest not only for teenagers, but to people in general. The moral messages are timeless, and are presented in dramatic and often humorous settings.

In Twelfth Night one of the themes is young women seeking independence in a “man’s world”. In one particularly hilarious scene, Wedlich as Malvolio reads a love letter that he thinks is meant for him.

India Wilson, a particularly skilled and experienced actress, found Twelfth Night interesting and easy to understand as she was familiar with the movie She’s the Man, which is based upon it. Saying that she thoroughly enjoyed playing the part of Orsino, India enjoys the camaraderie of acting and had lots of fun rehearsing and performing the play with her friends.

However, as much as the performance was a success, it was quite difficult, noted Zachary Myers. He said there was some panic at the beginning of the rehearsals when some key cast members dropped out for various reasons; however the parts were soon re-cast and the show was quickly back on track. He found it interesting working with new people, many of whom he had previously never shared a stage with, despite being an experienced actor.

But just as everyone was fine-tuning their parts, and as they were beginning to feel fully confident about their roles, the two storms hit Bermuda and, much to the whole casts’ disappointment, it initially looked as though it would be impossible to stage the play. Months of work would have all been for nothing.

Hannah Marshall said it was due to the optimism and perseverance of the director, the costume adviser, and the cast, that the play was able to go on, albeit several weeks after the planned performance.

Hannah thoroughly enjoyed being part of the production and found it particularly nice that Ms Taylor went to great lengths to ensure that the students had the opportunity to perform and get credit for the work they had put in.

Preparing and performing a Shakespeare play is always a feat of teamwork, but that was particularly true in this case.

All of the students involved with the play agree that it is still important to include Shakespeare’s plays as part of the curriculum, and having performed the play they all agree that Shakespeare is an important part of history, still relevant today.

The students were very pleased with the end result, and the enthusiasm and attendance of the people who came to watch it. Despite the play’s happy ending, it closes with the reminder that “the rain it raineth every day” — a very appropriate line, given the challenges that were successfully overcome in order to stage the performance.